"Drink Me"

Ooh, ooh, ooh, down in the hole. That is where I'm going in this probably brief moment where everyone is talking about men's rights and misogyny. It is affording me many opportunities for ladyshrinking.

Because every time I read one of these #yesallwomen posts from women that validates my experience, I feel a little better.

And every time I read one from the men who don't get it or the men who support the killer, it gets a thousand times worse and I shrink, shrink, shrink. Because I remember who makes reality.

I am like Alice in Wonderland in the room with the doors.

There are too many stories. About every time some guy came around and stole some part off of me. Casually. And I didn't tell anyone. Because the stories are languageless and untellable.

And once you say it, they are sure to say. "What's wrong with a compliment?" or "He just liked you" or "poor guy."

The explaining is the worst part. The part where you try to tell him is the worst part. He has a very rational argument. About. Why it wasn't what you thought it was.

In these response articles I can't stop reading, I do not feel like I am eating the "eat me" cake and growing to be a giant. I am drink, drink drinking the drink me potion. And feminism seems like a silly fad and a flimsy shield for a person who is tilting and windmills. He has a very rational argument. About. Why there are no giants.

Moving my leg over on the bus every time he touches it, but being too polite to get up and change my seat.

Shutting my book and answering his questions with sadsack wit which matters not at all because I am still talking to him.

Checking every subway car for women and children.

Sleeping in my tent with mace in my hand. (They would say "you're biking all that way by yourself?" and what they mean is "someone's likely going to rape you.")

Checking the surrounding campsites for women and children.

Biking in long pants because the shorts made me choke on fear too much to pedal.

Stuck next to him on a plane for 8 hours.

Pretending that I don't speak English. Or pretending I don't speak Chinese.

Being stuck behind the counter at the ice cream shop and staying late, sneaking out the back to make sure he didn't follow me home.

Checking the surrounding area for women and children.

My ex boyfriend boyfriend in college said of women who were too emotional that they "needed a deep dicking."

Trying to spare his feelings

Giving fake numbers

Dodging hands, more often cringing under them

When I gave the curtain speech for the festival, someone told his friend I looked like I needed to get laid.

My ex boyfriend in high school got the guys to write "slut" on my locker

The drunks on 2nd street offer you a "free mammogram" and there's no, just no answer that gives your power back

It's every day, it's anywhere, it's any time.

Put your head down and keep walking

Wedding Themes

Nadine’s wedding was on Sunday. Hope. Joy. Sequins. Triumph of authenticity. Any wedding will make you cry, because you love some person who is getting married and you see time going forward and that time being marked in an ancient, ritual way. Nadine’s wedding would have made you cry because it is possible to be true, to be truly in love and to tell the truth about it.

In Nadine’s vows, she looked into her fiance’s eyes and said “and on that night, you know the one, when I came back 4 AM and begged for you to let me in,” she didn’t give showy details, but there was no doubt we, all of her assembled friends and family, were looking at one of the darkest moments in their relationship and a humiliating one for her. This was no princess dream. This was a marriage.

Nadine’s wedding was the opposite of mine. I had tried to make my wedding authentic, and authentically me. But there was really no such person. And if there had been, she wouldn’t be the sort who could stand in front of everyone and tell the truth. Honestly, I couldn’t even look in my fiance’s eyes. I looked at the ground.

In the weeks coming up to my wedding, I mostly took my disappearing self out on my mother. We went shopping for dresses, and I sat down on the ground in David’s Bridal, that squat square of strip mall romance, and buried my whole self in the tulle skirt of a gown like a two year old throwing a tantrum. Then I shouted at her for questioning my choice of vegetarian food for the reception accusing her of trying to make me be something I wasn’t, trying to make me submerge my identity. (PS It wasn’t her doing that.)

I didn’t want to wear a David’s Bridal dress, I didn’t want to offer a chicken or fish option, and as a culmination I didn’t want red roses. I don’t know how they got there, or how they got sprinkled on the aisle, but I know that standing there with my father in that iconic moment before we walked, what I said to him was “where did these fucking roses come from?”

Nadine wasn’t at my wedding, because the same me who couldn’t tell the truth about how much she didn’t want to marry her wonderful fiance also couldn’t be honest with her girlfriends and had destroyed most of those friendships years ago. It was something I regretted so deeply when I stood at the back of the room on Sunday and watched this line of beautiful, irreplaceable women stand up at Nadine’s side. Part of the crying came from the ache for my place there.

While those women were growing into themselves together, and growing up, I was alone trying to outdo everyone. To achieve some kind of imperviousness that would negate the need for their love. Oh, I really regret that now.

The friend who stood by me at my wedding, who kept the day running, brought me water and laced up my gown was Leigh. Knowing she would be there on Sunday made me sick to my stomach all weekend and led to an accidental and early drunkenness.

Leigh, who was ready to believe the worst about me when Dan and I separated. Who said flat out that she wasn’t interested in my apologies when, deep in the depression of divorcing, I failed to RSVP to her engagement party. Leigh who, when we finally met after her honeymoon, asked me to defend my side of the story, who ultimately wasn’t satisfied with it, and who I fretted for years believed that I was still exactly that shitty person that had wrecked those friendships years ago.

Truthfully, I still fret about that. So it was hard to be briefly and cordially acknowledged by her, standing there with K like a guilty little kid. All the shame came flooding back from the time of my separation, which was, not flatteringly, also the beginning of K’s and my courtship. Real or imagined, I could feel her judgement all over me.

Shortly after Dan and I separated, he changed his relationship status on facebook from married to me to in a relationship with his new girlfriend. When I see that red heart icon that means someone is changing relationship status, I still get a sick jolt of memory. I can’t blame him, we were both not making most gentle decisions of our lives at that time. I made my status private on facebook, and then I made it private in life. I never told anyone, even close friends whether I was single or with K. Those were my two statuses for years.

When I got back from Nadine’s wedding, I sat in front of my computer, considering changing my status to “in a relationship.” I was sitting in a wading pool of guilt and shame, though. I couldn’t do it. What if Dan saw? What if Leigh saw? What would they think about me? I typed Dan’s name in and scanned his pictures, trying to see if he was in a relationship. It kind of looked like he was. He probably wouldn’t care if I changed my status. "Blah de blahdy blah glerk," said my anxious brain. This is not how I try to live my life.

So I emailed Dan and told him what I was doing and why I was doing it. About sneaking around his facebook, about feeling guilt and shame. I told him I hoped one day we would be friends who didn’t hide their relationship status from each other. Then I changed my status. Then about 110 people “liked” it, which I know is some flimsy meaningless contemporary substitute for community, but it actually made me feel pretty good. All those people taking a second to say “we’re glad you’re happy.”

The next day, Dan emailed me back. He said that I had nothing to be ashamed of and to stop worrying about it. He also said that he didn’t think a friendship would work. I am a new person. Not the person he knew. That was the person he’d liked. And for a second I was crushed, so crushed that I started trying to reimagine myself as a person he would want to be friends with. Old habits die so hard. And then I remembered to sit in it. And it felt bad. And I sat in it.

The person he was talking about was the one who got married when she didn’t want to.

The person he was talking about was the one who had destroyed her friendships.

The person he was talking about was the one who was steeped in shame and seeing herself through Leigh’s eyes.

But the person I AM is the one who wrote to him and admitted it. And the person I AM is the one who will wish Leigh health and happiness and try to leave it there. 

And the person I AM was lucky enough to be invited to Nadine’s wedding, despite how I had treated her, because when she saw me in my mid-divorce misery at Leigh’s bachelorette party all she had for me was compassion. And then Nadine let me back into her brilliant life. And so I got to witness her refusal to make the moment of her marriage untrue. That is my model for how to be.

So even though the person I was would try to find a way to make Leigh and Dan love this new me, the person I am is going to sit in it.

Rachel is Pregnant

Rachel is pregnant. I mean, you know that. We all know that. She’s pregnant. As soon as I heard about it I was fine. Just kidding, I was scared. Even I did not know how scared I was until it was time to go visit her. I was so nervous on the bus over and when I was waiting for her to walk up and meet me on the corner of 34th and 34th that my stomach was kind of turning. Not gluten related.

I had written this little play a month before about how much I hate and am terrified by baby showers, about how I feel the are a ritual in which women strip other women of their agency and personalities and turn them into a facet of the great blobulous faceless collective mother. It was also a little about what happens to their childless girlfriends. Do they get cast aside? Inevitably? I was fine.

Look, I know in my mind that motherhood does not take away personhood. I’m always saying it in pithy feminist discourse. “Motherhood doesn’t take away personhood!” I might pithiliy say. But now we are talking about Rachel. Rachel who has always been incapable of dishonest inquiry. Rachel who paws scratches around at the base of ideas until their doors open. Rachel who sat with me the night before my wedding drinking pink drinks and telling me I didn’t have to do it, and then just sitting and being my friend when I miserably countered that I did. Rachel who never fails to make me feel like a real person instead of an impostor. Ugh. I need that particular person.  More than some baby. And certainly more than the concept of motherhood, which already has plenty of power, thank you very much.

But when Rachel walked up to 34th and 34th, she was carrying that baby like it was a book. There could not be a more natural thing for her to have on her. She was beautiful, actually. I know that people say that pregnant women are beautiful and they mean that that is because they are busy furthering our species with grace and serenity, and that is not the beautiful that Rachel is. She’s beautiful because she does things her own way. Within the course of the night, she would climb on to a replica of the bomb from Dr. Strangelove, straddle it like a horse, and take a photo with her fist pumped in the air.

Pregnancy, thank all the gods and goddesses, has not transformed Rachel. Rachel has transformed pregnancy. She’s made it as real as everything else about her, and therefore real to me. Far from being sucked into a hormone induced fog of serenity, she’s as sharp and engaged and living as ever. Maybe more. She’s living twice at once.

I don’t know why I was afraid that I’d find her diminished. Maybe because that’s what motherhood would feel like to me. But I’d underestimated her. I found her multiplied, and in all the things I secretly fear that mothering steals. In power, in freedom and in knowledge.

Look, I don’t want to make people, but I’m glad someone is and I’m really glad it’s Rachel. She says that when she’s getting too stressed and anxious, the baby kicks her. Alright, baby. If that’s how you’re going to do, we are on the same team. It’s like the baby wants to be in the conversation, and in the process of making us more present, thoughtful and human. The baby doesn’t want to steal our minds or our friends, the baby just wants to get in on the action. Surprisingly, I find, I have room for that.

I mean, good, I’m glad the baby is a buddhist. Seems the baby can hang. But more importantly, Rachel is still very here, making pregnancy real and soon to make parenting real and making me real with her reflection of me back to myself as my secret real self.

Ghostwriter

There is this beautiful girl at church, like a classical painting. She is the kind of girl who can wear no makeup and a flannel shirt and still shine through with wholesome, true undeniable beauty, and when she joined our small group I turned into a bridge troll and was like “great, just great.” I hated her immediately. I don't know why, you're the "evolutionary biologist" you tell me.

But the beautiful girl turned out to also be honest and funny and real and struggling, and then I had to love her.

The other day we were talking, and she said something about how although she hated working in sales, people always said that she’d be “so perfect for it.” And I asked “do they mean that you’re pretty?” And she said “funny you should ask that!”

She told me about how she had been hired by a boss who is notoriously hard to work with, but she didn’t mind the challenge, or that he gave her all his work to do and never gave her credit because she got to learn the job of a person years her senior- experience that would normally be out of reach for her. And she’s smart, so she enjoyed learning.

There’s another woman who works with her, an administrative person,  someone young and trying to figure it out, who had been put in charge of the logistics of a very big conference. And when this other girl successfully did her job, my beautiful friend suggested to her boss that they should do something really special for her. The boss suggested flowers, but my friend said it should be something meaningful, and so she rewrote the words to a pop song in a funny kind tribute to all the work her colleague had done for the conference, and printed out copies so that on the last night, when she came in they could all sing the song to her. The young woman was so touched, and felt so appreciated and the whole thing was a huge success.

The next year, the same conference was once again executed with aplomb, and on the last night, when my beautiful friend walked in for the final dinner, another woman from the sales team handed her a piece of paper. It was another pop song, rewritten to honor the organizer. The same gesture, again. But this time, my friend had been cut out of the plan. And this time, across the top of the songsheet it read “heavy lifting done by [name of the woman on the sales team.] Not only had she reused the idea, she had given herself credit. Blech.

Later that night, awards were handed out to the sales team members for outstanding work, one from each team. My friend had the highest sales numbers, the largest number of clients. The money she had brought in had allowed the three other men on her team to be hired. It had paid her boss’ salary and covered her own. But the sales award was given to one of the new guys. A really nice guy. Likeable. Potential.

I told her that that was a shitty story, and it is. The story of my life and probably a bunch of other womens’ too. But I asked her “why did you think of that when I asked if they said you’re perfect for sales because you’re pretty?”

“Oh,” she said. “When he went up to get his award I looked around and realized that the only reason anyone ever talks to me is because they want to sleep with me.”

I'm Five

Do you want to hear me talk at length about eating and not eating food? No. OK, fine. I will refrain from that.

K and I have been trying to date with minimal success and a lot of crying for about 4 years now. Finally we decided that we would go to counseling and hash out in there whether we should keep at it or just put the relationship out of it’s misery. That was about 6 months ago now. Yesterday, he said to me “It’s hard to remember it, but I was so scared we wouldn’t be able to work it out.”

I remember it clearly, and that’s not what I was scared of. I was scared it would. Because I was scared of this part.

Our relationship didn’t have much going for it in terms of partnership or fun or basic human decency, but from my perspective, it did have one really great feature, which is that it was his fault. Man, he was a disaster. Oh, when would he start taking care of himself?! Alas! Except, then he started taking care of himself, getting better, getting well, getting happy. And it got harder and harder for me.

Being with unwell and unhappy people puts me in a very safe position. I can counsel, I can help, I can give, I can sympathize. Lots of arrow-pointing-that-way kind of feelings.  I rarely have to deal with myself in any way. How could I? X person is in crisis! It would be selfish to seek their help, or to talk about my problems, or to express my disappointments or engage them as a fellow passenger to the grave or anything else hard to do.

But now, we’re even. We can’t just react to him all the time. Now I have to learn to do things even, and man, do I suck at it.

So many of the moments when my life has gotten better have felt like this. Like being a stupid baby whose head doesn't stay up yet. It’s good knowing where the process likely to end up, but I still don’t like it. I don’t like the icky, vulnerable, trying to dance feeling of having feelings. I hate not being able to feel like I’m “good at” a conversation or an interaction. I hate needing things and not being able to throw that need on the resentment pile where it can smolder and later be used as self righteousness when I don’t want to have some OTHER feeling. Lame.

The other day. K was having trouble and I was trying to help him, and even after I had spreadsheeted his problem all out into piles and put a happy face on it, instead of being relieved of suffering and brimming with appreciative adoration, he was still stressed out and anxious and I got mad. I did not even know what I was mad about, although I kept trying to say things that made no sense as if they did. “I just don’t like it when you use that expression of despair.” Or something.

Somehow, he saw it before I did. “That wasn’t a test,” he said. “You didn’t fail.”

“I know.” I said.

“It wasn’t a test,” he said again. “You didn’t fail.”

Then I started inexplicably sobbing. All snot-faced and five and totally unseated.

See what I mean? Those are some dumb, c-level feelings. It is pretty something to have walked in the world for 35 years and still not know what you are doing and why at such a fundamental level. Pretty lame. Pretty hilarious. Probably pretty common.

When you’re a little kid you go through this period when you are basically learning everything. Shapes! Colors! Cause and effect! Bath toys! Eggs! And you’re all giddy because there are so many things to add to your store of knowledge. I feel like that now. I mean, I feel five in the helpless boogery way, but I also feel five in the LEARN ALL THE THINGS way. It’s exciting to be able to see these things and do them and laugh and cope.

And the next day, K asked me to help with another problem. The whole thing wasn’t broken. It hadn’t been a test. I hadn’t failed. And now I help better. Not good, but better.