Eat the Damn Cake

First, I just wanted to point you guys to this really interesting post about what women want from work by Virginia at Beauty Schooled. In it, she gives the people who commented on my post about babies a shout out!

(me and my brothers and grandmother a while back, celebrating Chanukah)

This will be my first Christmas with my new family.

With Bear’s family. Who are also my family now. Isn’t it funny how you can sometimes just acquire a family?

Bear said, “It might feel weird. Someone might offend you by accident.”

We’re going to be in California with his family for about a week surrounding Christmas, which this year also happens to be the week of Chanukah (it starts tonight). So…Christnukah?

(source)

People always wish me a merry Christmas. And then I’m not sure what to say back, since I don’t celebrate it. Usually I just say, “Merry Christmas!” Sometimes I say, “Actually, I’m Jewish, but Merry Christmas!” Sometimes I sort of want to say, “Happy Chanukah!” but I never do, because that feels mean. Sometimes it’s obvious that the other person isn’t Christian either, and then we both kinda look at each other and then quickly walk away.

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THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. The winner was announced here.

Yup. There’s more. Remember when we were doing the Shabby Apple giveaway, and I felt really bad that there weren’t options for more than like, five sizes, and I did that annoying thing where I apologize a lot? Well, then Melanie, one of the readers of this blog, recommended that I check out eShakti.

eShakti describes itself as “…a unique women’s apparel store online that allows custom changes in the style of the garment – sleeve, neckline, length can all be changed by the customer to her preference.” They offer the full size selection from size 0-26W, as well as custom sizing.  You can basically design your own stuff, but a lot of what I saw on the site didn’t look like it needed to be changed.

I wrote to them and asked if they’d do a giveaway with ETDC, and they said yes. Because Cake is delicious 🙂

(it could be yours! I really, really love this one…source)

So here’s the deal.

What you win: ANYTHING under $60 on the site (except stuff in the Overstock section). That’s a lot to choose from. Whatever you choose can then be custom sized and styled (also for free).

How you win it: To be in the running to win, like eShakti’s Facebook page here and then comment under this post. All comments count, unless they say “I DO NOT WANT TO WIN. I HATE WINNING.” You can say, “Hey, what’s up?” you can say, “I love polka dots.” Or just hi.

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Sometimes I think there’s an invisible baby in my life. It follows me around, waiting, gurgling and cooing in pointed judgment.

I measure stuff against it. “So if I can get this damn book published by the time I’m twenty-seven. Twenty-eight, maybe. Then I’d maybe be ready.” It reminds me that I’m getting older, faster,  all the time. “What are you, thirty-nine? Oh, twenty-five! Not so different…Your eggs are already shriveling and growing more diseased and lopsided by the second. You’re not a kid anymore. Which is too bad, since you hit the peak of your fertility when you were, like, sixteen, or possibly even younger, when you still had those braces that ultimately didn’t even make much of made a difference. You thought it was cool to get the bands in holiday themed colors. YOU WERE MOST FERTILE THEN. And now look at you! Scrambling around, trying to find yourself or something, as time runs inexorably out. The clock is ticking, woman! Don’t think the clock isn’t ticking, just because you’re covering your ears.”

(source)

People ask me, “So are you guys thinking about kids?”

That’s what happens when you get married. Even in New York City, the land of not-having-to-think-about-kids-until-you’re-30.

“I think I’ll have a baby when I’m thirty, man or not,” said one of my friends at a group event.

“What?” the other twenty-something women cried. “Thirty? That’s too young! How about thirty-five?”

The land of not-having-to-think-about-kids-until-you’re-35.

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Bear wanted to know if I thought he was alpha enough.

The thing is, women don’t like beta guys. Women want a man who’s an alpha.

I’ve been running into these words a lot. They are used to describe men in articles, in research papers, casually, in conversation.

“He’s totally beta, y’know? He has, like, no self-confidence.”

(source)

There’s all that Pick Up Artist stuff out there, floating around on the internet, being inhaled by guys who already suspect they don’t fall into the sexy category. I read a little of it, once, when someone mentioned negging to me. Negging, for the uninitiated, is when a guy gently lowers a woman’s self-esteem through expertly subtle jibes. And then she sleeps with him because her self-esteem is lowered. “I love tall women. Nice heels…What are they, five inches?” GET IT? HE’S SAYING SHE’S NOT ACTUALLY TALL. (Clearly, I’m no Pick Up Artist– the ladies already love me).

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I have a bad memory. Some people can remember things like the name of the class their favorite professor taught in college. Bear can remember the course number. That’s insane. I don’t even remember the names of my sophomore or junior year dorms. In fact, I have no recollection of either sophomore of junior year. They’re gone. I mean, who needs them? It’s the beginning and the end that count. That’s why the middle of the movie is usually a bunch of montages that show slow, boring things, like falling in love and getting to know someone, happening quickly, set to inspirational music. There isn’t nearly enough inspirational music in my life.

I remember a lot of details about boys I dated, and I wish I didn’t. But in general, my memory is bad.

I told my grandma the other day on the phone, “I have to write this down somewhere, because when I’m old, I’m going to blame it on age. Also, my back already hurts. And I can’t always hear what people are saying. Especially if I’m nervous.”

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll offend her by referring to old people in non-politically correct ways (what IS the correct way? “Person of many years and much wisdom”?), but she just laughed.

Maybe I’m a writer because I can’t remember anything. I have to write it down to keep it. But then I catch myself remembering the wrong thing– I remember the thing I wrote, not the thing that happened. Or I remember the scene from a photo, not the scene from life.

“God, that was a great party!! I was wearing that red and pink checked dress, and Tommy was holding the supersoaker up over his head, and we were standing in the backyard, by the pine tree. I think…Anna was about to take a bite of cake! Yes. She definitely was. The fork was in the air.”

(ah, yes! I always loved to play the piano in a tutu! I spent years like that– it was the most important part of my childhood! and it was absolutely critical that the tights were polka dotted)

Or, “Mom was terrible when I was thirteen. She was so mean. She was always telling me I couldn’t do stuff that was totally reasonable for me to do. ALL I wanted to do was go on a camping trip with my 16 year old boyfriend! For three measly stupid weeks! That’s NOTHING. WHY IS SHE SO MEAN?”

It makes me sad. My 13-year-old memories are designed by 13-year-old Kate, and she couldn’t even spell.

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It’s been over three years since I got a nose job. Honestly, I can’t remember what month it was. Sometime during the summer.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember how much I hated my face. Enough to lie asleep while someone hacked it open. Enough to show up for the surgery even after my dad watched a live special on rhinoplasty and described it in horrifying detail to me (“and then there’s just this giant hole in the middle of your face because they flip the skin back, after they cut the piece, you know that little piece in between your nostrils? Yeah that one.”) It’s hard to remember how badly I wanted to look different. I was casual about it. I played it cool. “It’s just something I need to do, y’know?” But sometimes when I was alone, I would look in the mirror and cry because I hated my face so much. It felt unfair. So many other girls got a regular nose. And then they had regular faces. Why me? Seriously, God, what the hell?

And then I got the nose job, and, well, some of you know the story– it didn’t really make a difference.

“This has only happened to me one other time,” the surgeon told me apologetically, explaining that something had gone wrong.

Instead of my face being fantastically transformed, it was just slightly rearranged. Now my nose is a little crooked in places it didn’t use to be. It’s a little thinner at the bridge.

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