Eat the Damn Cake

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A friend of mine, talking about a friend of hers, said, “She was bulimic.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, and shook my head a little. “That’s too bad. I hope she’s OK now.”

“She’s doing a lot better. It’s been a couple years.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

The conversation moved on. But now I’m sitting here, thinking about that. About how simple it was, to mention it, to comment on it, and to let it slip away. Because, in a way, it’s become normal. Or at least, it’s common enough that it doesn’t make you go, “WHAT?! WHY?!” If you said that, you’d look like an idiot. You’d look like someone who hasn’t lived in the world. When girls live in the world, they sometimes destroy themselves in order to be thin. It’s complicated. Much more complicated than that sentence. It’s a tough world. If you don’t understand, it can’t be explained to you.

But if you try to step back for a moment, you might imagine, as I suddenly did, throwing up. Continue Reading »

Today’s post is from Jen, the massage therapist who gave me my first massage, and who I mentioned in this post, called “Touched by a stranger.” Her practice is called StressLess, NYC, and she’s great at what she does. Thank you so much for this, Jen!!

“Oh God, please don’t let her think that I’m fat.”

That is what I am wasting my time thinking as I wait for my first massage to begin.  I am preoccupied with the idea that someone will be looking at me naked for an entire hour.  I imagine a clinical, appraising kind of gaze that will size me up, and probably find me lacking.  I imagine that the massage therapist will be somehow “grossed out” by having to touch and feel me, as if there is something inherently wrong with me.  Additionally, I am operating under the misapprehension that somehow not only my physical flaws, but my psychological ones will be obvious to the touch.

Amazing that I even showed up to have this massage in the first place, really, considering what I thought I was up against.  I should give myself some bravery points.

“Tell me what is going on with your body.” Continue Reading »

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You know that sense that you’ve done absolutely nothing with your life so far, and probably won’t end up doing anything particularly commendable for the rest of it? What about the feeling that everything you thought you were pretty good at turns out to be irrelevant, as though some administrative-type recently called down from the sky in a bored but official tone, “Painting: Unnecessary! Poetry: Campy! Writing: Come on, no one makes it as a writer! Music: See writing. Grilled Cheeses: Delicious but not very impressive!”

I feel like that a lot. I don’t have enough evidence to support the social worthiness of grilled cheese making. I can’t prove what I’m giving back to society, or that I’m giving back anything at all. In many ways, I’m one of those quintessential twenty-somethings.

Remember that article in the New York Times about us?

We’re driving everyone crazy. We don’t fit in. We seem undecided. We can’t pick one thing and stick to it. Continue Reading »

So I dragged myself out of bed, and I sang! Thanks so much to my amazing synagogue community, and the incredible choir. They backed me up even when I sang directly into the microphone in a whispery voice. I felt a little like a pop star. Until I started coughing again. But seriously, I love that community so much.

Anyway, there’s a guest post of mine over at NonProphet Status. It’s about things I’m bad at. And some of those things may feel a little ironic, considering all this talk about participating in religious ceremonies. But, really, maybe they’re not.

Chris, the guy who runs that blog, is one of those people who goes around changing the world. I’m pretty happy to be his friend. Check it out!

OK. Got to go blow my nose. A lot.

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Un-roast: Today I love the way my lips look stained purple from the no-sugar-added blueberry juice. That stuff rocks.

I just woke up. I don’t normally sleep until 12:38 p.m., but I’m sick. Some flu that’s going around. The symptoms are like fireworks, each is more spectacular and surprising than the last. And now….the grand finale!

This evening begins Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It begins a period of ten days called “the days of awe,” concluding with Yom Kippur, that require Jews to reflect on their lives, recognize their mistakes, and attempt to reconcile, repair, and renew themselves and their relationships. There’s also a giant ram’s horn that is blown in synagogue, during services. Seriously, how hardcore is that? It does not sound pretty.

I’m a lay cantor. The “lay” part means that I lead services with the rabbi, even though I didn’t go to cantorial school (a five year graduate program). The “cantor” part means that I’m the one who does all (or most of) the singing. It also means that I’m a religious and spiritual leader. The musical liturgy is in Hebrew. In fact, I even get to sing calls to the people blowing the shofars, and the instruments will bellow back their replies. It’s a very interesting dialogue. I always love it. My voice (which is naturally sort of sweet and warm, despite all my efforts to make it dark and deep and mysterious), calling out in the silence, from the bima (the alter), and the harsh returning cry of the shofarot, which obey all of my commands. There is a vocal command for the length of each of their sounds, and for the number of sounds they will make. Girl and ancient ram’s horn ensemble. The interaction of these sounds is an epiphany. It’s a transformation. It’s only very, very recently, historically, that women have participated in traditional organized monotheistic religion. Continue Reading »

(Continued from Finding True Love, Part 1)

I didn’t want it to be too late. I wrote in my journal, “I want Bear, but I don’t want to want him.” He seemed too quiet. I was worried about how he’d hold up around my obnoxiously loud, raucous, opinionated family. They had destroyed the chances of many men before him, and, I figured, would destroy many after him.

I sat in an office combing through endless pages of material for an organization that wanted to make sure they were using the most inclusive language possible. I made lists of instances where “spouse” was used instead of “partner,” used the words “people of color” a lot, and added “Q” after “Q” to “LGBT.” And I thought about kissing Bear. It was a fun crush.

We wrote back and forth from our respective offices, flirting just the slightest bit. He found a Mark Doty poem I’d heard the poet recite but had never managed to track down online. Lilies in New York. One of about five poems I’ve ever loved. We sent each other the articles we were reading in the New York Times online. We made plans to walk around on the High Line, the elevated new park in Chelsea that used to be train tracks. We were dating.

So let’s just take a step back here. I had met Bear. And one day, I was going to marry him, though I didn’t know it yet. In fact, unbelievably, in about a week, I would begin to realize it. But even that was a long way off at the time.

But what was the context for our meeting?

(source) Continue Reading »