You Ain't the Boss of Me

Here’s a big newsflash for everyone: I have breasts. Two of them. And while not huge, they enter the room before the rest of me and announce my presence. They are, I would say, undeniable.

 I also have a vagina. And while this does not enter a room before me, I would also say that it is undeniable. The absence of a bulge in the front of my pants means that you know what’s going to be there instead.

I also have unintentionally big, intentionally fake-blonde hair. I’m round and soft-looking. Although I’m young, I look younger than I actually am. And on days when I’m dressed the way I like, I look like I’m maybe 40% Elvegren pinup girl, 30% cartoon character, and 30% Aging Starlet—you know, the once-perfect ingénue just slightly past her prime, who copes with the passing years with booze and pills and overdressing for every occasion with something that’s a little too sparkly, or too revealing, or too ruffled; the woman who maybe fell down drunk in a ditch while walking into the party, but goddamn it, she still looks good, and she’s going to tell you that loudly and belligerently if you look at her sideways.

I am also fucking brilliant.

Don't Hate the Playah, Part the First

“You hate men, don’t you?!” he demanded.  It was more of a statement than a question. 

The guy is maybe 25, 26—one of the oldest students in the class of 35.  He had just described a play, a comedy, in which three wives discover that their husbands accidentally got locked in a meat cellar, and collectively the wives decide to…leave them in there. 

I laughed.  Because it sounds like a funny premise for a dark comedy.  And the guy was describing a comedy. But then:  “You hate men, don’t you?!”

Quite honestly, I was floored.  “Hate men?” I thought, “Me, of all people?”  I stood there in front of the class, mouth gaping open, trying to process the accusation.  And everything in the room went all foggy and turned into colorful, squiggly lines—you know, the psychedelic ones that transport you into the mandatory dream sequence in The Brady Bunch or really, in any other 1970s-era TV show—as I fell backwards down the rabbit hole of my own mind, looking for what could have ever inspired such a comment.

Honestly, I’d be lying if I said that my relationship with men as a whole is unconflicted.  It’s totally conflicted.  I’m not sure, but a bit of conflict might be an inherent part of heterosexuality—gender-based differences become significant because of sexual tension.  Maybe.  But that seems like kind of a lame rationale.

When I was super, super young—maybe four or five years old—I remember thinking that when I grew up, I was going to turn into my father.  Literally.  I thought I would grow up to be a man.  The why for this is anyone’s guess, but my concept of transformation into my dad—because hey, I was a little baby—was absolutely literal.  Literal to the point where I forced myself to eat spinach because my dad said it would “put hair on my chest”.  Because I thought that would be awesome.  Because men had hair on their chests. 

Oh, thank god that didn’t happen.

Dear Mr. Badger

Dear Mr. Badger,

This was bound to happen sooner or later.

It’s been four months since you’ve been gone. 17 weeks. It doesn’t feel that long, but I checked the calendar. Since you passed away, people have been lighting up your Facebook page, tagging pictures of you, inviting you to events, posting “miss you" messages on your wall. I know your family looks at your page, and I hope it gives them some comfort, as much comfort as possible—you know, knowing that you were and are loved.

That being said, I want to punch every last one of those people in the face.

Meat

My touch o’ the shine warns me what he’s about to do about two seconds before he does it.

We’re locked together tightly in a hello kiss that turned serious, and when we come up for air after a few minutes, he exclaims, “God, it’s so good to see you!” He locks his arms around me in a solid squeeze, giving that little growl all guys seem to do when they squeeze you hard, and then my touch o’ the shine just says:  “Oh, shit…get ready!”, and I know exactly what he’s going to do. I have just enough time to draw the deepest breath possible to let out an extended squeal of “Nooooooo!” as he transforms his bear hug into an attempt to lift me up.

I don’t quite get this, but it happens all the time. Dudes, whether you’re making out with them or not, get excited to see you, give you the big hug, growl a little while doing it, and then try to lift you up. I don’t know where this comes from, but I see it happen to girls all the time. And then guys try to do the same to me….

The Cocoon

Not everyone has SuperPowers, you know. If they did, they wouldn't be so super. Trudie, for example, does not have any SuperPowers. She has something far, far more impressive, though. Trudie has magic.

Let it be known that when I say "magic", I'm not talking about the prestidigitation of some sketch, middle-aged dude in a mock turtleneck and a bad independent mustache. I'm talking for-real magic. It's ancient; it's domestic; it revolves around the home and the hearth and the heart. And it runs in her family.

I was, like always, alone in the car, on my way from here to there, but I happened to be passing through Trudie's patch of woods, so she asked me to stop for the night at her family home.

Fierce: or, The Biggest Box of Candy in the Shop, Part the Second

So, Shiawassee is staying at my house, and maybe because she's there for Valentine's Day, maybe because we've had a few too many whiskeys, she starts to give me a pretty strong earful about The Kind of Man I Need. I'm okay with this, not only because Shiawassee is sassier and smarter in the ways of the world than I could ever aspire to be, but also in light of my past. I've gotten tangled up with some shady characters before--some villains, even a sociopath--and it was mainly because I totally couldn't see the shadiness, the villainy, the sociopathy until it was way, way too late. It was after they were in. And then I was lost. A girl could have used a friend like Shiawassee standing over her shoulder saying, "Now I know you are not going to fall for that! Walk. A. Way."

I'll also let Shiawassee go to town on me over The Kind of Man I Need because she doesn't trivialize the issue of The Body. Meaning, my body. The thing that you're not supposed to say--and the thing that your girlfriends are apparently never supposed to entertain for even a second--is that realistically, most dudes have an issue with dating a fat girl. The specific subculture of Chubby Chasers aside, there is a hugely real difficulty that guys have in dealing with their attraction to a fat girl. An awesome, funny, sexy fat girl to be sure, but the awesome, the funny, the sexy will never eliminate the social charge of the fat. It doesn't take a genius to note how female fat is stigmatized in American culture, and by default, for a guy to want a fat girl...well, he's in grave danger of having that stigma rub off on him. Especially when you're talking about someone like me--no amount of euphemizing will squeeze me into the upper range of average. So in my experience, I have found that for a guy to admit that he wants to be with me, he either has to be:

1.) so clueless that he doesn't realize the social implications of being with a fat girl

2.) so secure in his masculinity that what other people think doesn't matter

or,

3.) so brave that he's willing to step up and face potential social stigma. Oh, and this bravery has to double if the guy is "very attractive" in a mainstream or traditional sense.

Fierce: or, The Biggest Box of Candy in the Shop, Part the First

So, Shiawassee was staying at my house for a few days, since she had a short gig in Rust City. I picked her up at the airport and took her back to the Gingerbread Cottage, and after hauling in her suitcase and doing our girly shrieking about how awesome it is that she's here, she looked at me sharply and said:

"You've lost weight. Did I tell you that when I saw you last month?"

Shiawassee met up with us for one night on our trip Down South last month. You know, when my jeans were slipping down and my bra was too big. I said, "No, you didn't tell me."

Still eyeballing me, she repeated, "You've lost weight."