Eat the Damn Cake

Note: I’m on Ignite Social Media’s list of “100 Women Bloggers You Should Be Reading“! Lots of thanks and offers of cake to Olivia Hayes, who put  me there!

Occasionally I am awkward the way someone is awkward in a slapstick movie.  When I’m flustered or nervous or just really not paying attention, I have been known to drop things. And then drop other things. I mix words up in interesting ways. I can’t count on myself not to.

In the train station the other day, I was running late, but I was really thirsty, so I grabbed a bottle of water at a convenience stand and attempted to pay for it. First I dropped my purse. Then all of the cards (credit, license, metro, Zip car, Borders gift with $3 on it that has been there forever for no reason) fell out of my wallet. I crouched down to collect everything, my scarf slipping off onto the floor. Then, when I managed to pay, finally, the water started rolling down the counter. The cashier grabbed it, laughing.

(source)

“Good luck!” she called after me.

“I’ll need it!” I called back.

Sometimes I think I look about that awkward, too. As though I might at any moment be caught by surprise by the strangeness of my own face in an unexpected reflective surface. My body might do something crazy– like bulge in a place I hadn’t thought it should bulge, or slouch in a part that I’d thought wasn’t slouchy. In the East Village the other evening, I walked by a long, dark window, and actually had to put my hand on my stomach, to see if it was really my stomach sticking out that far, or if it was just my shirt. Because it had to just be my shirt.

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This made my day. And the day after that. And it will make tomorrow, too. So I wanted to share it with everyone. This is ETDC reader Laurie Skelton‘s response to my post about how the pretty princesses we’re exposed to growing up never seem to have big noses. Or flat chests and big butts. Or very much that reminds me of myself at all, actually. This princess, created by Laurie, clearly has her priorities straight:

Her blog is here. Her tumblr is here. She is fantastic and I love her forever for this.

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Unroast: Today I love the way I look in little strappy sandals. Or barefoot, vanquishing the dragons that try to keep me from my cupcakes.

A lot of my friends are on OKcupid, the dating site where Bear and I first encountered each other (I know! It’s the most romantic love story ever! Online dating!), and occasionally, one of them will pull me over to a laptop and ask for my opinion on, say, fifty or so guys.

“OK, so he’s pretty vague about what he’s doing with his life, but look at all the books he likes!”

And “Look at his eyes! You can tell he’s really nice. But do you think he’s funny? I can’t tell.”

And “Oh my god, this one’s hilarious. Listen, he says, ‘I will search your soul and find the answer and then I will turn that answer into all of your dreams coming true.’ Is he really, really high?”

We pour through pages of guys. I am often surprised by how picky my friends are.

“Nope. He works in an office. Boring.”

“Nah– those are the show-offy glasses. And what is he wearing??”

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I try to be nice for the most part. I also try to sound smart. But sometimes the niceness wins. And sometimes I’m just not that smart.

The other day, I was having coffee with a friend who was talking about the world. It wasn’t a conversation I was proud of. In fact, it was maybe a little embarrassing.

Her: “The world is just a messed up place!”

Me: “Hell yes, it is!”

Her: “I mean, it will keep you down. You have to fight for everything you have.”

Me: “You do!”

Her: “You know what they say? They say no good deed goes without being noticed. I believe that.”

Me: “Me too.”

Her: “And that’s the saving grace.”

Me: “It really is!”

It was a conversation composed entirely of clichés. But I like her. And I wasn’t about to disagree or ask for specifics or clarifications. It was easier and more fun to just go along with it. So there I was, in a coffee shop, eagerly agreeing with statements about life being a little like a bowl of cherries, or was it a box of chocolates, as the guys with their ironic laptop bags at the next table over glanced up curiously to see who could possibly be having such an unimaginative conversation in such a cool part of Brooklyn.

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There are no examples of people who look like me being hot. Because I am this weird combination of parts that surprised even God. God was like, “Wait, really? That can happen?” when I was born. I still don’t understand it. I look at my parents and grandparents and can kind of figure out how it’s possible, but I can also see how it could’ve easily gone a lot smoother.

Growing up, I knew this couple who were gangly and oddly-arranged. They had bad posture. They looked somehow drab. And they had three kids who looked like child models, and later, like actual models (although that line is a little blurry sometimes, so maybe I shouldn’t make the clarification). It was like all of the parents’ fantastic genes had been singled out and put to work. It was fabulous.

It didn’t happen that way with me. Maybe my parents were too good-looking to begin with. Which is really OK. I mean, I’m over it. For the most part.

(even her bird has a prominent nose. source)

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What is that? Apparently it’s something. One of the readers of this blog sent me some info on it, wondering if it might be an interesting thing or possibly, possibly a real one.

Orthorexia is when someone is obsessed with eating healthy foods, often to the point of self-harm. It’s not a medically recognized term, but Wikipedia is all over it, of course.

OK, our culture wants to medicalize and pathologize (I’m getting red squiggly lines for both of those words as I type this. Get with the picture, Word!) everything in the world. I don’t know anyone who can’t recite at least one Greek-based term for something that’s wrong with them. I have scoliosis (as you know from the yoga post) and anemia, myself. Wait, neither of those is from the Latin, right? I probably also have several things relating to my tendency to nod enthusiastically when other people speak, my abnormally acute interest in little summer dresses, and my inability to stop cutting my hair.

Naming things often gives them meaning. But some things have meaning even before someone tags a fancy title on them.

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