I’m listening to Michelle Obama’s audiobook, and she’s describing how Barack proposed to her in a restaurant. The server brought the dessert plate and lifted the fancy lid, and there was “a dark velvet box where the chocolate cake was supposed to be.”
And, OK, fine — yay, congrats, mazel, etc.
But also, um… You’re still gonna bring my cake, right? It’s just backstage somewhere?
I feel like she really glossed over the important part.
I texted a guy’s dating profile photo to a friend…
Her: “Hard pass. The curtains. I can’t get past the curtains.”
Me: “Holy shit, I didn’t even notice the curtains! They got lost behind the camo, the cake, and the Crazy Eyes!”
Her: “I’d like to give him props for making that cake, but that’s a Shoprite liner. He didn’t make that shit.”
I’m not posting the whole photo here because I’m not a COMPLETE asshole, but here are the offending curtains, and a bit of the camo.
NB: I am complete shit at home decor, so I’m not judging anyone’s style — I don’t even HAVE curtains. But I do have very mild OCD, and that mismatch would drive me batshit insane.
In happier news, there was no fondling at the wedding last night, but there was this, so…I mean, holes were filled.
Around May, I noticed my jeans were getting tight, so I bought bigger jeans, but thought, “Oh, OK, wakeup call — I should lose some weight.”
Buuut I didn’t.
And then the bigger jeans started getting tight, and I thought, “NO. This is horseshit. I’m not spending MORE money — I’ll just lose some weight. For real this time.”
Buuut I didn’t.
So I bought the NEXT biggest size, and you know what? I am fucking COMFORTABLE. God, fat pants are the BEST. And the kinda stretchy fat pants with Spandex or whatever in ’em? DAMN. So good.
Screw it. The world is awful and cake is great.
(Ahem… This defiant attitude brought to you by the first time a doctor ever told me it might be good to lose some weight, which happened last week. But she based it on BMI, and BMI is fake news. Suck it, lady. #sheetcaking for the win.)
As seen on Jennifer Weiner’s Facebook page:
Male BFF: “Where do you want to go for drinks tomorrow night? Something low-key like Barcade, or something more involved like dancing at a gay bar where you’ll be fondled by beautiful gay men and I will have an experience in the men’s room that leaves me questioning some very fundamental things about myself?
Me: “Any place I can get drunk and find a dude or two to make out with, but that is also magically not crowded/won’t have a wait on a Saturday night.”
(If y’all ever have the chance, being horny, lazy, AND socially anxious is, like, the BEST.)
Followup email: “Also, if I’m going to get fondled, I think I’d prefer hetero. I’m not sure I could convince a gay man to put his hand up my dress. But hey, dare to dream.”
I think My Default Bar wins—they offer bacon-y cheese pretzels, froofy cocktails, and cake. Throw a unicorn* and some books in that joint and I’ll be set for life.
*Please don’t really throw unicorns. They’ll fuck you up. Little known fact: Unicorns are actually total assholes.
One side of brain: “No, we’re trying not to eat our feelings, remember? We’re trying to eat better and practice healthier coping mechanisms. We are stronger than food.”
Other side of brain: “Fuck you, we’re REALLY not. I demand six Egg McMuffins and a few shots of whatever will sedate me. Literally, whatEVER: Wine? Prozac? Cough syrup? Horse tranqs? BRING IT.”
Buffalo mozzarella sticks, guys. Do you know what that is? It’s mozzarella sticks, doused in buffalo sauce, AND THEN YOU DIP THEM IN BLUE CHEESE. It is sexy, cheese-on-cheese action. It is fucking vile…and also quite possibly the best thing in the world. A nice man would deliver it to my door — along with a pizza — for a nominal fee, because America is AMAZING.
P.S. I will obviously also need a cake, because “It says right here, it is a dessert wine.”
I had written all this high and mighty shit about feeling bad for my mom, because she’s so worried about her weight that she deprives herself of delicious food. I prattled on about how I was glad I let myself enjoy food, because pfft, I’m clearly SO above those outdated ideas, and fuck it, we only get one trip through here, so we might as well have cake.
Aaand then my brother Facebook-tagged me in some party pics from the other night, and you know those weight-loss ads where the women are all, “I saw myself in a photo and realized I am a giant fuckoff hambeast?” Yeahhh… I’m gonna have to rebuild some of that body confidence I’d been having.
Cameras lie, though. They are tricksy and false. Basically wizards. Shifty wizards, in cahoots with angles and lighting. That’s right, I said it — cahoots.
Still, maybe some exercise is in order. We all know I’ll do whatever Shaun T tells me to.
No kale, though.
Fuck kale.
This was in the most recent list of search terms people have used to get to my WordPress page:
Holy shit, you guys — WHAT am I writing? I know it’s my id and all, and I certainly have my moments, but it’s USUALLY not “devastating Christmas depression fuck you.”
Seriously: Therapy. It’s great. Mood drugs, too. Maybe also have some cake? Cake fixes a lot of things. Search for cake.
Disclosure: I am a Shonda Rhimes fan (duh): Meredith, Addison, Olivia, Annalise. You name, I worship.
So it really should come as no surprise that I loved her first book, Year of Yes. I loved it on spec, really. Shondaland disciples understand. (Juju be with you. And also with you.) But I was still excited that it met and exceeded my expectations. It was great to read about SHONDA, not just to see her peppered into little bits of her characters.
As you may infer from the title, Rhimes dedicated a year to saying “yes” to things outside her introverted writer comfort zone: giving the commencement speech at her alma mater (Dartmouth, NBD); losing more than 100 pounds; making self-care a priority; saying “no” when necessary; accepting praise — as a woman especially — with a “thank you” and no attempt to negate or downplay your achievements. (Have y’all seen that Inside Amy Schumer thing? You should. We all should. And then we should all knock that shit off.)
Really the best thing I can say about the book is: it made me feel better. I hesitate to use the word “inspirational,” because UGH. But it was. It helped me during a tough time (specifically, the week I happened to be reading it, my brain was not being especially kind to me). But the book still made me laugh so hard my lady-belly ached. I had to put it down multiple times to laugh it out. On at least one page, Rhimes had me brimming with weepy tears, then cry-laughing two paragraphs later. It’s one of those comforting books that made me feel like things are actually pretty OK — I am a badass lady and I shall “power pose like Wonder Woman,” and if you don’t like it, you can just step right off.
I actually bought a LivingSocial deal for an audiobook site just so I could have Shonda Storytime. Maybe her “badassery” can infiltrate me via hypnosis osmosis while I sleep.
Her reflections on Mommy Wars were insightful and hilarious, even though I don’t have children. Standing up at a PTA meeting and shouting “Are you fucking kidding me?!” when they demanded homemade desserts instead of store-bought? Hero. But it also made me think about how I speak to my friends who are mothers, and to consider again the way women address and judge each other. (By the end of that chapter, you too will be all, “Whitney Houston. Curling iron. Solidarity.” Just trust me.)
My favorite chapter was the one about her weight loss, how food is amazing and DOES make you feel better, because it’s delicious but also because it’s a lovely, numbing spackle for your internal wounds. Oh, Shonda — you had me at “Cheesecake will always taste like love.”
My new favorite expression — and get ready, because you’ll see me use it in the future — is “veal practice.”
“Did I tell you what veal practice is?” asks Rhimes. “Oh! Veal practice involved me lying very still on the sofa trying as hard as I could to mimic the life of a veal. While eating veal. I wish I were kidding. It. Was. Magic.”
Veal practice, people. It’s gonna be a thing.
2015 was actually my own Year of Yes — a year that brought me Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy, Matthew Quick’s Silver Linings Playbook, and finally Year of Yes, the icing on the therapeutic cake (but only metaphorical cake because I try not to use cake as therapy anymore).
Rhimes’ book is, in essence, about deciding to stop living your life being small — meek, numb, detached. Going through the motions, doing only what you have to, not being present, not feeling joy. Sleeping, basically…hardly even living. I struggle every day NOT to live that way, but she’s right — sometimes it really is easier, so I can’t say I always succeed.
It was as if this year the book gods had bestowed upon me the exact books I needed to get my shy ass off the couch and out to an aerial yoga with a Creative Ladies’ Club full of women I didn’t know, to an oral sex class or a burlesque workshop, and to really deal with my family issues and these romantic ensnarements I can’t escape — Olivia Pope ahoy, y’all. (I suspect I won’t get past them until I find my own Jake Ballard, though, so I think I just have to wait that out. Plus, Liv totally screwed up that Jake thing. I mean, honestly — Jake taught you how to shoot, danced to Stevie Wonder with you, fingered you on a tropical beach, and brought you Gettysburger. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT, OLIVIA? You want “Olitz,” seriously? Fitz is a giant bitch-baby with an overly emotive forehead. Vermont is cold, and jam sucks — Jake shakes like jelly. For the love of God, Liv, go STAND IN THE SUN!!!!!!)
*pant* *pant* *pant*
I sense I have too many feelings about this.
So. You go get yourself a copy of Year of Yes.
And I? I will go enjoy some veal practice.
#YearOfYes
*At my request (pleading, really), the lovely people at Simon & Schuster send me a copy of Year of Yes for my review.
Smug Singleton 