Eat the Damn Cake

I just read a book by Diana Joseph called I’m Sorry You Feel That Way. It made me feel better about myself. There was a chapter about being slutty, and that was my favorite one. I read it aloud to Bear. Then I tried not to cry. It would’ve been really embarrassing if I cried. The thing is, I feel guilty about boys. I wish I hadn’t been the way I was. I feel like I shouldn’t talk about the way I was. It’s a dark, slimy secret.

I have always liked boys. Once, I had a pretty serious crush on another girl, but mostly it’s been boys. Even though the first time I kissed a boy, and excitedly shared the secret with my mom, she panicked and told me he was going to try to get me to take my clothes off, probably, I still thought there was nothing wrong with kissing. Or with taking my clothes off, even though at that point I was twelve, and I couldn’t see why I would want to take any clothes off, and I was pretty sure the boy I’d kissed didn’t want me to.

He didn’t. He was scared of me. I was the one who’d made us kiss. I had cleverly tricked him into it.

In fact, I cleverly tricked several boys into similar situations. Kissing was thrilling. I had all the power.

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I asked Bear how his day was.

He thought about it for a second. He said, “Somewhat so so.”

Somewhat so so? Is that even a thing? Is that a state of being? The next step down is “Entirely so so.” The next step up is “Partially OK.”

I found this really embarrassing Word document from a long time ago, before I moved to NYC. In it, I’m describing the guy I’m definitely going to meet there. The guy I’m going to marry. The first thing I say about him is that he writes these absolutely lovely songs on guitar. His lyrics are heartfelt, subtle, and clever. They’re about things that matter. His finger picking is impressively accurate.

He is a passionate guy.

My mom always said I needed a passionate guy.

(source)

Once I had this dream about a herd of white horses running through a shallow river. I was waiting on the bank. Then a black stallion came tearing down the hill on the other side and splashed mightily up to me, and I jumped on his back. Someone should analyze that dream.

My mom did. She said it meant I needed a passionate man.

My grandma said it meant I should be careful. Very careful.

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First, writing-related things that are happening to me:

I’m on The Hairpin! I’m talking about getting mistaken for a contestant on America’s Next Top Model, in Times Square.

And the amazing Rachel Rabbit White talks about Bear and me in this piece on the Frisky, and it makes me feel really special and slightly famous.

And I’m on Mamamia, the big Australian site. You guys might have already read this piece, since it was on the blog first. It’s about how annoying it is when people tell women to just get confident.

Why do good things always happen all at the same time? I’m not just saying that because it’s a thing people say. My life works like that all the time. It annoys me. It makes savoring hard, and I’m already bad at savoring.

But here’s what I’m really talking about today:

Fancy, fancy New York City.

A friend of mine got invited to Esquire Magazine’s  78th birthday party in the Esquire Penthouse, which happens to be here in my neighborhood, in an apartment called “the clocktower” that I know about because my mom sent me an article about how it’s the most expensive apartment in Brooklyn. $25 million. Wow. Seriously? Who knew I was so close to something so rare and precious?

The apartment is literally a clocktower, with multiple floors and four massive working clock faces. It looks like this:

(except dark and sexy and bigger than this picture I found on the internet lets on. source)

It is not really Esquire Magazine’s penthouse– they’re just renting it. But “just” is probably the wrong word. God knows how much it costs to rent. In any case, my friend asked me to go as her plus one and of course I went, because I really wanted to see this place. But of course I was scared of everyone else who was going, because I was pretty sure they were going to be really fancy people.

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My eyebrows. I can’t keep this in my head. People do stuff to their eyebrows all the time, and somehow, I just never learned about it. I think I’m supposed to get them waxed. Last night I pulled half of one of them out, without noticing. I was writing, concentrating hard, and I didn’t like the way some of the hairs were sticking up, the wrong way, so I started worrying at them. And then this morning I was missing half of one eyebrow, and it is really awkward, especially because I have this corporate job interview thing today.

The way I smell. I mean, I don’t want to stink, obviously. But it never occurs to me to pick nice smelling products chiefly because they will make me smell nice. And perfume almost never smells nice. I don’t even pick shampoo with any care. As a result, I don’t think I have a distinct smell, that a man can say “Oh, god, that sweet scent! It drives me mad with desire! The beautiful Kate has passed this way…” about. One day, like three relatives, after hugging me, said, “You smell good!” I think I had put some acne cream on my face. I always sort of think that I should cultivate a distinct, lovely scent. But I can’t seem to get around to it.

(source)

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I was doing laundry in the basement of my building today, crouched over, wearing a fuzzy green hat because my hair under it was epically greasy, and a red plaid shirt, and my period was making me feel like everything about me was gross, and this young, well-dressed guy came in and I sort of half turned, in case he was holding a weapon with which to murder me, but then it turned out he was normal and clean-cut, so I tried to smile instead, but it felt forced and awkward, like my mouth was twisty, and I said, “Hi,” but I hadn’t spoken in a long time, and my voice came out all low and croaky and weird and he didn’t respond, he just kind of raised his eyebrows at me, like, “Um….Oookay.”

And I went back to shoving my dirty underwear into the hole, hoping my pants weren’t sliding down as I bent over.

God, I can’t trust myself at all. Who IS that girl in the green hobo cap? Why is her voice so strangled and strange? Why is she so awkward that other building residents think SHE might be the one with the weapon?

I think of myself as incredibly inconsistent. I never know what’s gonna come out that day. Could be charming. Could be terrifying. Could be clever and cute. Might be The Girl Who Always Almost Forgets The Date of Her Own Birth. You know when you call the doctor to get a prescription renewed and they’re like, “Date of birth?”

It’s like “Hi, I’m just calling to–” “Date of birth?” “Oh! Um– yeah…three,six,eight-six.” For a second my heart speeds up. I think “I forget. Wait. What–Oh, right, I remember.”

That girl lives inside me. All the time. She might come out at any moment.

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There’s nothing like a huge snowstorm and a power outage to remind you how much you need electricity for everything. And how hard it is to feel bad about your appearance by candlelight. Which, naturally, leaves one feeling contradicted. One being me.

I performed a Bar Mitzvah service yesterday morning, at my job in NJ. It started snowing hard in the middle of it. Everyone was turning to look out the window. The kid handled it really well. He was like, “God likes me.” And by the time I got to my parents’ house in the afternoon, the car was beeping like crazy as I nearly slid off the road. Not helpful, car, I notice that I’m sliding off the road.

“OK,” I thought, as I slid. “This might be the end.” I think I’m actually very good in near-death moments. Even though I’m, in general, terrified of dying.

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