Eat the Damn Cake

After feeling awfully sorry for myself yesterday, and moping around for a bit, and then frantically pitching approximately three-thousand* magazines while frothing at the mouth, I took a moment to think.

I highly recommend moments like those. Thinking moments. Where you go, “But seriously, what the hell am I doing?”

(source)

I was freaking out. I am one of those people who tends to freak out. I tend to believe the worst. I tend to interpret things negatively. If someone gives me a weird look on the elevator, I am more likely to think, “Why does she hate me?!” than “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m carrying fourteen bottles of diet orange soda?”

When something bad happens to me, I am likely to think, “Well, this just says it all. I know the truth now. I suck. That is the truth. Nothing good will ever happen to me. And I’d might as well accept it. Maybe I should cry a lot, dramatically, at my computer, while I’m accepting it. Yes. Definitely the way to proceed.”

And then I proceed that way.

But when I took a moment to think, after my bout of frantic pitches, it occurred to me that a lot of this probably comes down to how I think about success.

How do you think about success?

I think about it like this: GOLD MEDAL NOBEL PEACE PRIZE PULITZER A MILLION DOLLARS GIANT BOOK DEAL HOUSEHOLD NAME SUPERMODEL MOVIE STAR EVERYONE IN THE WORLD LOVES YOU MORE THAN THEY LOVE THEIR KIDS.

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I want to write something fantastic today, but honestly, I’m sitting here staring into the yawning mouth of my ancient printer, wondering about the meaning of life. In other words: I just got a rejection letter.

I get rejection letters all the time. I’m a writer. This one hurt in particular because the editor had written to me first, rather than the other way around. She requested a specific piece. She named an amount of money that was larger than any amount of money I’ve ever been offered for anything I’ve written. And she suggested that the process to publication would be smooth.

Nothing had been signed. Nothing was formally formalized, but she sounded so certain that I felt so certain that I did the thing I shouldn’t have done: I told my parents.

Look how well I’m doing! This big deal magazine came to ME!

We were in the kitchen, at their house. They were so excited for me. They said a lot of things about how things are finally coming together for me. How my hard work is paying off.

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She was gorgeous. A regal profile, dusky skin, round thighs that narrowed into long, graceful legs in black leggings. She was curvy, but she wasn’t the classic hourglass shape. She was something unique. Something captivating. I liked her tight, brave outfit. I liked her confident face and her perfect posture. There was something queenly and dramatic and comfortable about her.

We were on the subway. I elbowed Bear. “That woman is really beautiful.” I had to tell someone!

He glanced around. “Which one?”

“In the leather jacket!” Obviously.

Then I saw that her friend, slender and with hair molded into big, stiff curls, was wearing the same jacket. She was also beautiful. I hadn’t noticed her before.

“Her?” Bear nodded towards the friend.

“Leggings,” I said.

He looked thoughtful for a second. Then he whispered, “Kinda chunky.”

“Excuse me?” I knew I hadn’t misheard, but I hoped for a frantic moment that we could pretend I had misheard and he could say, “Kinda spunky…. and awesome.”

“Chunky.”

The world ended.

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This is a guest post from Rebecca Neff Brown. She sent me a photo of herself with buzzed hair and I was like, “OH MY GOD, Please write a guest post for me!” Because she is obviously awesome, and because I am a passionate proponent of buzzcuts. I’m letting her introduce herself:

I’m a personal stylist and fat fashion blogger. I live in Seattle, WA with my beardly and amazing husband, Bob, and our little, furry dog named Waffles. Recently I got a buzzcut, and I love it, and now I am going to tell you ALL about it.

I knew it was coming. The buzzcut.

I had grown my hair out for years after a particularly jarring haircut that made me look, in my husband’s words, like a Romulan. After two years of growing it out, it was luscious and long and braidable. I got tired of it and just cut it all off one day. Not buzzed-short, but short. And then I got it cut shorter. Then I buzzed the sides. Then I cut the top shorter…. It was calling to me, the buzzcut. It was only a matter of time before I went all the way.

It was rainy and freezing, and I found an amazing parking spot right across the street from the barber shop where my husband gets his hair cut. I felt like it was destiny, getting a good parking spot like that. The shop wasn’t crowded at all, it was a Thursday afternoon. Out came the clippers with the #4 guard, and off came my hair.

And readers? I love it.

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It may not seem like that much of an accomplishment, especially coming from someone like me, who has done impressive things like understanding whole sentences written by Judith Butler and juggling tangerines for a full three seconds– but yesterday I went out in a tank top.

Yes. I, Kate Fridkis, wore a tank top, baring my arms for all the world to see.

I paired it with pants. And flip-flops. I put on some gold hoops, in case you were wondering. I was going to be brave.

In honor of this amazing weather (I will not make a weak joke about the end of the world here). In honor of being sexy with chubby arms.

(when the world feels like this, how can you not want to take some layers off? source)

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A version of this piece also appears on Psychology Today. 

I was not sexy last night. Bear and I went for a walk in the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Bear was like, “We’re leaving in ONE second,” because I kept stalling to gchat with a friend. I was like, “I need to put clothes on!” And he was like, “Well, you have ONE second,” and I put on leggings, a giant floral print dress (I can’t remember why I have this), and a bulky sweater. And scuffed, cheap boots. Not cutely scuffed. Just scuffed and flaking, so you can see that they aren’t real leather.

My hair is a bad length. People keep telling me, “No! It’s so cute!” And I know that’s not right. Either they can’t remember that it used to be cuter, they’re being polite, they’re lying, or they haven’t seen something cute in a long time. My hair has grown out from a buzz cut without attention, and it turns out that I have like forty different cowlicks, and it flips up on the sides like I’m trying to look like I’m from the forties, and it’s puffy, and it looks like a badly made wig. That’s just the truth.

Why is it like this? Because of my genes. And because I keep not doing anything about it.

I was not sexy at all, when we walked along the waterfront. A group of Orthodox men went by, and I thought for a second that I might seem almost respectable to them, in my shapeless, full cover attire. Almost.

Bear stopped me by the base of the carousel. He was saying something about me being beautiful, and I was handling it well. Not laughing or anything. Trying to respect his opinion.

And then I thought about the Killing Us Softly (4, 2/2) video I had watched earlier that day. In it, Jean Kilbourne talks about beauty and gender and food and sex, and she says:

“A visitor from another planet who just looked at our popular culture would have to come to two conclusions:  the first is that sex is really the only thing that matters …and the second is that sex and sexiness belong only to the young and beautiful. If you’re not young and perfect looking, you have no sexuality. And I think the ultimate impact of that is profoundly anti-erotic. Because it makes people feel less desirable. It certainly makes women feel less desirable. How sexy can you be if you hate your body?”

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