Eat the Damn Cake

I was waiting for the train, freezing in about fifteen layers of wool and flannel, and a woman five feet away was wearing a pencil skirt, a cute jacket, and heels. No leggings. No stockings. She was not shivering pathetically or falling to the ground, dead of hypothermia. She was not begging me for one of my coats. She was just standing there, looking calm and sexy. Looking so very Manhattan chic.

That isn’t physically possible, I thought. I’m hallucinating. I’ve entered an alternate universe. Which is pretty actually pretty great, when you think about it, since I’ve always wanted to enter an alternate universe, ever since I was a small child…But then I remembered last winter in Manhattan. And the winters at college, where the girls picked their way through the slush and ice in high heels and tiny dresses. The girls who wore short skirts and boots in the winter. The girls who always had makeup on. Even when they had the flu.

I have never understood this.

(you could wear this! remember when this style became incredibly popular? it always looked terrible on me. source) Continue Reading »

I am thinking about death. The window in the kitchen won’t shut all the way. It’s behind the counter. I can’t get to it without climbing. Even if I climb, I can’t convince it to obey me. As though it’s lost respect for me, watching me fight for balance, knocking a bottle of olive oil over.

So it’s freezing inside, and only going outside and then returning can make it feel the slightest bit better. Even when I wrap myself in blankets my fingers are still so cold, and my nose is leaking.

Which is also because I’ve been crying. After reading Joyce Carol Oates’ account of her husband’s death (in The New Yorker). Which I only read because I am already thinking about this. He died in Princeton, where I grew up. In a hospital I used to drive by every other day. Her pain, like a tidal wave forming in the center of very still sea, is easy to ride. It feels close to me, like I’m standing on the edge of the water, just waiting.

I am young, and so I’m supposed to be brave. I’m supposed to have that stupid, bold bravery that you have before you know better. The kind that lets you drive recklessly, for fun, and keeps your mind on what’s directly in front of you, and encourages you to take the job, even when it’s really far away from everything you’ve ever known.

(I’m putting dramatic photos I’ve taken in this post, because they seem to fit) Continue Reading »

This is a guest post from Rachel. You might recognize her from her comments on this blog. She’s often the one calling me out on something or not letting me get away with anything. When I mentioned the pill, I felt like I had a lot more to say about it, but I sort of wimped out. And then Rachel suggested that she send me this post, which adds something important to the discussion.

This is Rachel: She’s a feminist thinker in an English PhD program. She teaches college writing. I met her in college, in a class called “Women and Public Policy.” She raised her hand even more than me. This is what she has to say (today):

Remember that ubiquitous joke in sit-coms/movies/teen fiction:

The virile alpha-male makes a pass at the innocent, but sexy woman.

She responds, “I’m more than just a pair of breasts, you know.”

“Of course you are! How could I forget that great ass?”

*Laugh track*

How about this: I am not my breasts; I am not my genitals; I am not my body. Continue Reading »

I was standing in the checkout line at Duane Reade, and a woman on the cover of a magazine was sticking her tongue out at me. On her tongue was a pill. New York Magazine just came out with an article that is stirring up a lot of debate, interest, and just plain talk.  It’s called “Waking Up from the Pill” and it’s about birth control, fertility, and being a modern woman. It feels important to me.

On the Upper West Side, where I live, there are twins everywhere. And fertility clinics. And middle-aged black women pushing baby carriages with white babies in them. When my friend Erin had a baby at twenty-six, it seemed like she was doing something incredibly radical.

Most of the young women I know aren’t planning on having babies anytime soon. I hadn’t planned on getting married anytime soon either, until I met Bear. In fact, 30 sounded like the right age for most big, scary grown up things in my life to begin.

But according to this article, and to plenty of other sources, fertility declines dramatically at and after 30. It’s that constant dance we women do. That constant relationship we have with our imaginary, potential future selves. Will I regret it later if I don’t have children sooner? Will I regret it later if I do? Continue Reading »

I wrote a little about my grad school experience in an early post called “smart and pretty at the same time.” But an email from a reader made me want to write some more. She was telling me about being a young woman in a science department at her college.

It’s hard to exaggerate how stupid grad school made me feel. I hadn’t been feeling stupid before. In fact, when I moved to New York City, I felt particularly smart. I had just defended an honors thesis in front of an intimidating panel of professors who took honors theses very, very seriously. My whole family showed up to watch. I used the word “hegemonic” several times, which is all my brother Jake got out of the experience (later, he teased me with this impression of me, endlessly repeated: “First, allow me to say….hegemonic. And now, on to the rest of my thesis!”).

(the word still makes me think of this… source)

I knew all of the professors in my department, and I once joked around by stepping up to the board when the professor was late and pretending to lead the class. In that moment, I felt so powerful. Like, you know, if someone bothered me too much I could just shoot force lightning out of my palms. When I started college, I was this confused, haughty little person who proudly refused to stop talking so much in class, despite the other students putting her on a black list titled “most annoying people ever.” But by senior year, I had learned my lesson. I learned to make jokes rather than painfully earnest points. I learned to make friends. At the year end departmental party, I approached the boy who had impressed me the most three years earlier. This time, I made an impression too. Continue Reading »

A little over two years ago, I moved to Manhattan. On my first night here, I wrote a song that began “This big city/ with its small sky….” The buildings obscured everything. I felt slightly buried. I felt incredibly alone. The next day I went out into the world and learned that I was not fashionable. Mostly I learned it on the campus of Columbia University, where all of the young women had a certain look. It was a look that my friend Liane and I (both of us at Columbia at the time) tried to describe, months later. “Shiny hair,” she said. “They always have shiny hair.”

“Their skin is always clear,” I said.

“They’re always thin.”

“Their clothes always match. But like they didn’t mean to match.”

“Their clothes are always a little casual, but you can tell they’re expensive.”

“Their jeans are never too blue.”

(these colors are acceptable. source)

In fact, in the year I spent at Columbia, I only saw one heavyset girl. One. I wondered what her life was like. And I felt this enormous, unquenchable urge to buy boots. Continue Reading »