Archive for August, 2011

why aren't we supposed to have pubic hair?

I get the feeling women aren’t supposed to have any anymore. OK, maybe a little. But it has to be tasteful. I get the feeling it’s not considered tasteful if there’s very much. Or even just much.

Everyone is getting waxed. That’s just what you do. Or you get electrolysis. Which is the most practical choice. Or at the very, very least, you make sure you remember to shave.

No one ever got around to sharing the rules with me, and I’m a little slow, or maybe I’m oblivious, but I’m not even sure what people mean when they talking about shaving it. Just the sides, for when you are wearing a swim suit? Or are we always talking about more?

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Kate on August 19th 2011 in Uncategorized

Is twenty-five old now?

My friend was on an elevator with some undergrads the other day. Both girls. One was saying to the other, “Wait, can you believe she’s actually twenty-six? She seemed like she was young.”

“That is so weird,” the other said. “I didn’t know she was so old.”

“That is really old. But she’s still cool, I guess.”

“I guess.”

My friend is twenty-six. She felt old.

Twenty-five is not old. It’s just the age when famous people start being younger than you. When you realize that a lot of the famous women in movies are twenty-two. Definitely pop stars. They might be sixteen.

(source)

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Kate on August 18th 2011 in Uncategorized

Total, obvious fail: a happy story

I painted one of my walls with chalkboard paint yesterday. Which is why I have black streaks on both knees, most of my fingers, and one nipple (OK, the last one is hard to understand. I was not painting naked. But maybe it was the bralessness that did it).

I want to write a book. But writing a book is turning out to be harder than I’d expected. Which feels lame, because there are so many people who are trying to write a book. And I want to be one of the ones who is like, “Oh, I just wrote a book.” Like that Twilight woman, who was like, “Oh, this amazing story just popped into my head and then I sat down with my laptop and two weeks later, I’d written five trillion pages, and that was Twilight!” (Or something like that.)

I decided that I needed a giant blackboard, to sketch my plot on. If I had that, things would fall into place. So I made one. But I have to wait two days to draw on it.

Some people go through life full of life. They are proud of themselves. They are content. I want to be one of those people, but I’m not there yet.

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Kate on August 17th 2011 in Uncategorized

A Practical Wedding (and a Jewish homeschooler)

I meant to write a post today, but then I got too excited.

Because I’m on A Practical Wedding! CLICK HERE! Thank you to all of the readers of this blog who kept suggesting that I submit something. You guys know what’s best for me.

I did not act particularly bridal during the wedding planning process (which you can read a summary of here). I never shrieked and jumped up and down. And I’m resisting the urge now. But the urge is definitely there.

And I am also in The Forward, with a piece about growing up both Jewish and homeschooled (so, like, weirder than everyone else). CLICK HERE! This is my first newspaper piece (The Star Ledger published a letter to the editor of mine, and actually changed my words. In ways that made me sound like I might not be incredibly literate. We’re not on speaking terms and they don’t count).

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Kate on August 16th 2011 in Uncategorized

going braless

The reason why I didn’t want to do yet another hair post was because I am afraid of seeming kind of obsessed. I think a reader left a comment to this effect recently. I didn’t read the whole thing, because I could tell it would be mean, and I’m a wimp. Actually, I think it’s because I’m a wimp that I keep cutting my hair in stages. I wasn’t brave enough to do it all at once.

My dad accused me of being obsessed with my hair when I told him I wanted to buzz it. He was kind of joking, but kind of not joking.

There’s only so much support you can expect, when you’re a woman who keeps making her hair even shorter. My brothers used to get buzz cuts, and no one really even noticed. But I suddenly realized that my desire to have the shortest hair possible makes me a little radical. Which is not my intention. My intention is to have the shortest hair possible. Because I love it.

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Kate on August 15th 2011 in Uncategorized

I was almost on Good Morning America today

Yesterday, I got an email with the subject “Good Morning America.”

“Hi Kate,” it read. “Would you be able to be interviewed on camera tomorrow?”

Good Morning America wanted to talk to me about My Body Gallery, the site that I wrote this very recent post on. They wanted my thoughts. There’s a chance they’ve read THIS BLOG.

I don’t watch TV. I mean, I watch Hulu, of course. But not real TV. Growing up, we didn’t watch TV. I clearly don’t know how big of a deal TV is, somehow, because my first reaction was, “Oh no. I don’t want to be on TV. That’s scary. I’ll probably sound stupid and make weird expressions.”

Because I was ambivalent, I did the reasonable thing: I put up a Facebook status explaining to my Facebook friends that I wasn’t sure what to do.

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Kate on August 12th 2011 in Uncategorized