Eat the Damn Cake

Speaking of getting married, there’s that thing about names. You know, that thing where you’re a woman, and you get married, and then you have to decide whether you want to keep the name you grew up with or take this completely new name that you hadn’t given any thought to (or maybe even heard) until you met a particular guy.

There’s something strange about giving up a name. Suddenly, it sounds like you’re not a part of your own family. You’re a part of this other family, except that you don’t know their stories yet, and you don’t have memories of them yet.  So you’re kind of a name ghost. You’re floating between families. You haven’t grown solid and real yet. That happens when you become normal at their gatherings and dinner tables, and when you can say your own name and think of yourself. It happens when you become automatic to them, and they are automatic to you, and you all have memories of each other. It might take years . Maybe a lot of them.

And what if you do something remarkable and public? The little girl you were wouldn’t know how to recognize herself in your name when she read about you. People who read about you won’t immediately connect you back to the other members of the family you grew up with. And when they know those family members or read about them in the paper, they won’t connect them back to you. You’ll have to say, “You know, he’s actually my brother.” And if you have a sister, and you both get married, and you both have new names, it’s even more confusing.

(My Hebrew name is on my wedding contract. That’s another name entirely.)

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Here it is. (Some of) my wedding in pictures.

This is me in the bridal chamber, at the end of getting ready, when I started to feel overwhelmed at an entirely new level.

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Last week, I got the first real purse I’ve ever had. It is brown and black and gray. It can fit a book, a knit cap, gloves, and all of the normal little things (wallet, phone, tiny mirror, chapstick, random bobby pins, fifteen receipts from Duane Reade, unopened mail,  the earrings that I have to take off after an hour because they hurt my ears). I feel like a woman. I carry it everywhere. I don’t know why it took me this long to get it.

There is a point when girls start carrying purses. I don’t know when it starts exactly, but it’s probably shockingly young. I missed it. And then, at another point later on, those purses become much more mature and practical looking. The colors get more subtle. The shapes are less creative. They grow large enough to fit everything you might need to sustain you for a week, if you find yourself stranded in the wilderness, or in the middle of Manhattan. Continue Reading »

The wedding photos came in today. In two discs. One of the discs works. My computer growls at the other one and then spits it out. I looked through about 450 photos in maybe five minutes. And now I need to think about what I’ve seen. And not do anything rash. And look at everything again.

I’d gotten to the point where I almost didn’t care about how they came out. But now they’re here, and I definitely care. I don’t want to look through them again. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see myself looking awkward and lumpy and bad, even when I’m wildly happy and wearing a beautiful dress. I don’t want to look in the mirror and think, “Why can’t just one of the pictures capture the way I look right now?” I don’t want to think, “My kids will think this is what I looked like when I was twenty-four.” I don’t want to think anything. Continue Reading »

How do you feel about being naked?

Do you walk around naked? Do you sit naked? Do you ever stand naked in front of the mirror?

I was in love with my naked body. At fourteen, I sat on the floor with my biggest sketchbook, back straight, legs in what my ballet teacher had called “the butterfly.” I was naked in front of a full-length mirror. I was going to capture myself.

(well, i can’t exactly post a naked picture here, can i? source)

Virginia, of Beauty Schooled (who I finally met in person last week! She is as awesome as she sounds!),  wrote about being naked here. She made me think, as she always does. (And then, as I always do, I copied her idea for my own post.)

I’m sitting here, wearing a lot of clothes, trying to organize my thoughts about this. I think, “Powerful,” and then, “vulnerable.” I think of myself with boys. I think of myself alone. Nakedness sounds sexual, automatically, but every day we stand in the shower, even on the days we don’t have sex or even find someone to flirt with. We change our clothes. I take off most of my clothes every time I come home. I take off my earrings,  my socks. I put on pajama pants and a tank top. Most clothes are a part of my outside world self. Especially a bra. Why wear a bra when no one is around to notice your nipples?* Continue Reading »

Time Magazine recently featured an article by Lauren Sandler called “The Only Child: Debunking the Myths.” It is about the stigma placed on only children and their parents, the pressures parents face to have another, and another. The idea that one is always just the beginning. Sandler points out that only children tend to succeed (academically, socially, in terms of their fashion sense and ability to pick the best pizza toppings) at higher rates than those with siblings. She talks about raising a kid in this economy, and why it might not make sense, on a very practical level, to have more.

Long stereotyped as spoiled misfits, Sandler argues that only children are pretty great. I read this article not only because I think the word “singleton” is hilarious, but because it’s true that people say, “So, when do you think you’ll have kids?” Plural.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote a hot refute of the piece in The Jewish Standard, arguing that parents who think about having children in terms of whether or not they will make life more difficult are being selfish. He’s like, “The disgustingly selfish Time Magazine writer asks parents to think about whether having another child will make them happier. THEM HAPPIER. As though a child is some sort of high-tech gizmo or fashionable accessory!” (This is not exactly what he says, which is why I used the word “like.” See, Mom? There are times when it’s completely appropriate and not just a frustratingly teenaged substitution for “said.”)

Honestly, I’m not sure how people have children without thinking somewhat practically about how the decision will change their lives. Continue Reading »