Eat the Damn Cake

So here’s a problem: you like this guy who you keep running into at the poetry open mic that the bar down the street does every other week. You were both a little drunk last time, and you exchanged numbers, but then he didn’t text, and now you really want to text him, but you don’t want to look desperate. What do you do?

I get asked to solve this problem a lot.

And you know what I’m really tired of? The word “desperate.” You know which other words I hate? “Clingy” and “needy.”

“Do you think I’ll look desperate?” my friend was asking me yesterday.

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This guest post makes me want to stand up and cheer. Which looks awkward when you’re alone in your apartment. But is worth it anyway. Thank you so much, Anna!

Hello, everyone!  My name is Anna.  I’m a post-liberal arts degree part-time pregnant nanny.  Normally I blog over at www.icyviolets.com, where I usually restrict my writing to the beautiful processes of making and consuming food.  But my interests run from food to fashion to body image to women’s issues…and of course when all of these things come together, as on Kate’s blog, I am hooked!

So I was delighted when she asked me to do a guest post on our society’s ideas of what constitutes a “normal” body.  To put it into context, her invite was prompted by this comment I left on her post of a week or two ago, Bikinis Hate Food:

“The other day I was reading about women’s struggles with their post-partum figure, and read some statistic that said that 86% of women don’t return to a ‘normal’ figure within a year of birth. And all I could think was, shouldn’t that stat, that huge majority, make a NEW normal?? why do we consider adolescent bodies the norm for adult women?”

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Things summer forces you to do:

1. Wear shorts

2. Wear shirts or dresses with spaghetti straps

3. Sweat

4. Think about your body differently

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A guest post from the amazing Fraylie. For those who don’t know her yet, Fraylie is a brilliant young woman who is at a crossroads in life. It’s a crossroads that many of us stand at for a very long time, buying more strawberry shortcake ice cream bars from the guy with the cart, and trying to figure out what the rest of our lives are supposed to look like. Fraylie graduated college not too long ago, and then worked as a waitress, and then got into grad school, but realized that grad school is incredibly expensive and that she wasn’t sure it was the right decision anyway. Now she’s looking for a job in NYC. But really, of course, she’s a writer. As you can tell:

I don’t look so great on paper.

What I mean is I am best as a human being.  With a voice that makes real, tiny vibrations and a body that slouches and sighs at all the right times, I am best sitting right next to you.  I am best when I laugh and I mean it.  It’s when you can see the sunburn on my nose and imagine sand and rock.  Then I know we’re playing a fair game.

I am bitter after so many rejections this week.  The interpersonal ones – I can almost deal with them more.  The ones where a guy stands me up or leads me on, at least I know that the power of my body tried its best.  I was there, speaking, hearing, listening and moving.  I offered everything possible, without compressing anything of the body into words and paper.

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I caught myself doing it again. That thing. Without even thinking about it. It’s become automatic.

Sucking in my stomach when I’m alone.

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It was Bear’s birthday yesterday. He’s twenty-seven now. He feels old and doesn’t like me to say “twenty-seven” too often. I think it sounds like a good age. Full of potential, but old enough to know some things about the world.

For his birthday, we ran around the East Village, collecting some of his/our favorite foods.* We invited some fantastic, fascinating friends over, and had a little party. More  than a little party doesn’t fit into our apartment.

As we were sitting around eating, we started talking about food, since there was so much of it, and it turned out that all of the guys in the room were on some sort of diet. I’m not sure that’s the right way to put it. One of the guys was a vegan, another was really interested in longevity research and how food impacts long term health. They were all passionate about what they should and shouldn’t eat. And Bear, of course, is a diabetic, and has chosen to eat a very restricted diet for health reasons (no carbs. No bread of any kind, fruit, anything with sugar, beans, rice, things with flour, most berries, some nuts, etc. In other words, he eats vegetables, meat, and cheese. He also doesn’t drink milk).**

Sometimes I feel like I’m surrounded by people who take food incredibly seriously. And they’re usually really smart.

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