Marshmallow Gore

Because I am a self-declared domestic goddess who once happened to make a batch of simple fleur de sel caramels (the recipe and idea for which I admit I stole from a friend), several Christmases ago I decided to make marshmallows. Complete with red swirls and peppermint flavor courtesy of oil, not extract, I planned to package them in petite cellophane bags tied with splashy red ribbon, pair them with decadent Godiva hot chocolate mix, and bequeath them to my loved ones as holiday gifts.

This idea came to me while I was making To Do lists. I’d made gift baskets for the adults in my family before, but I’d taken a hiatus for several years, first while I was in graduate school and then while recovering from a pre-holiday breakup. That year I spent the gift basket assembly energy on dividing up a collection of CDs (remember those?) that had been five years in the making. Don’t worry, I got every last Beatles album. But I digress.

The marshmallows – oh, the sure to be brilliant, melt-in-your-mug mallows! – would mark my triumphant return to the holiday goody baskets. This idea came to me and I paused in the middle of my list making.  I imagined my mom making a delicious mug of hot chocolate and plopping two fat, fluffy, scratch made mallows into her drink. She’d sit down in front of her fireplace and Christmas tree and take a sip of the Greatest Cup of Hot Chocolate in the History of the World. And that would be it! I closed my eyes and pictured my dearest loved ones succumbing to similar fates at the hand of that victorious combination: my marshmallows and Godiva’s cocoa. In one fell swoop I’d repay all of the sweetness, warmth, and comfort that the people who loved me most had shown as they helped me pack up half a house of belongings, and purchase new bedroom furniture, and learn how to flirt again, and put my heart back together.

So you know, no pressure.

I read the instructions several times before starting. The making of the marshmallow fluff went off without a hitch. I managed to dirty more of my kitchen utensils than ever before with sticky, sugary, mallow goo, but it tasted like heaven and, hey, I’d successfully produced a pan of smooth, snowy white, lighter than air marshmallow batter! The penultimate step was upon me; it was time to add some drops of red food coloring to make the signature swirls.

Thinking about it now, I’m still not sure what compelled me to use quite so much food coloring. Maybe I declared victory too early, the batter was just so good. Maybe I caved under pressure. Maybe I lost focus because I was singing along to Chris Isaak’s “Forever Blue” too loudly. Maybe I’m overeager. Whatever the reason, I overdid it. I applied the drops quickly in evenly spaced rows across the entire surface of my pristine layer of marshmallow fluff. Toothpick in hand, I started swirling.

The food coloring immediately began eating through the soft candy. Eroding it like acid, the little red droplets sank through the surface, making tunnels through the sugar. Neighboring drops merged to form pools. I began to despair. Biting my lip and clenching my teeth I tried to work faster, lamenting that I’d opted not to work in smaller sections. Why wasn’t that included in the recipe’s instructions! Damn that shoddy recipe!

By the time I reached the last row I had a tray of marshmallow fluff that looked like an axe murderer had stood over it while hacking twenty people to death. No longer a smooth cloud-like pillow, it was a jagged pan of pink slime. A bloody, gory monstrosity, unfit for human consumption. Always optimistic I thought, “Maybe once it cools it’ll be alright?” and placed it gingerly in my fridge, hoping for some kind of late night fridge miracle.

The next morning I entered my kitchen on tiptoe, fingers crossed, and opened the fridge to discover that the slime had not so miraculously cooled to rubber. I tipped the pan into the garbage and made some coffee. As I filled my sink with hot soapy water to scrub the now petrified mallow remains off my cookware, I said, “At least my kitchen smells nice and pepperminty. And it’s the thought that counts, right? Next year I’m just making pies. Pies are way easier than candy.”

Famous last words!

Right to the Babymaker

I don't want to have kids.

There. I said it. Lately a lot of people seem to be asking, so I thought I'd save everyone the trouble and just come right out with it. Most people are surprised to hear me say, "Nope, no kids for me!" And I just continue to be surprised that people - many I barely know - think it's acceptable to ask me such a personal question in the first place. I mean, I don't go around asking what you do with YOUR sex organs, do I? Why don't you just ask me how my last Pap smear was while you're at it? Gawd. But it's happened so often and with such increasing frequency that I've come to realize there's no changing it. People are going to ask me this question for the rest of my life, so I better get used to answering.

There are two basic responses that I receive when I tell people I don't want to have a baby. The first is, "Oh, you'll change your mind," which is sometimes followed by, "when you meet the right person to be their dad." (I got that second part a lot more often before I was in a serious relationship.) The other response usually comes after my second or third insistence that kids aren't for me, and sounds something like, "Are you sure? But how do you know?"

Both of these reactions irritate the shit out of me.

First of all, telling me that I'm going to change my mind minimizes a major life decision that I have spent a lot of time thinking about. In fact, I'm willing to bet that I've spent more time deciding that I don't want to have children than many people who actually have children spent thinking about becoming parents. Which, considering the level of commitment involved in being a parent, is a little pathetic.

No one EVER tells an expectant parent that he or she is going to change his or her mind about that decision. And rightfully so, it'd be a super shitty thing to say. What would be the point? It is one of the few irreversible decisions that a human being, especially a woman, can make. Once you've had a baby you can never un-have it. Jobs you can quit, husbands you can divorce, mortgages you can walk away from, but you can never, ever change the fact that you had a kid. Parents, mothers especially, who realize too late that maybe they didn't really want to have a child after all are not judged kindly by society, and many become negligent parents who do tremendous harm - both emotional and physical - to the children who are in their care. It is not socially acceptable to tell a roundly pregnant woman, "You might change your mind!" And it should be equally unacceptable to say it to me. Yes, I realize that it's possible that I may live to regret my decision, but if and when I ever do it will be much too late to do anything about it. And which situation is worse, not having a kid and regretting it, or having a kid and regretting it? Exactly. So shut up already.

The second response, "But how do you know?" is irritating because no one is ever satisfied with my reasons. If I say, "I just know it's not for me," they shake their heads doubtfully, and press me for a more valid response. But a mom who says, "I just knew I wanted to have kids," gets nods of appreciation and admiration from her audience. Why is my understanding of my own feelings somehow less authoritative? I've never felt the urge, never felt compelled, never felt a pang of longing when seeing a mom with her newborn, never wished myself in her position. Shouldn't that mean something?

If I say, "I'm too selfish to be a good parent," I get frowned at. Like it's so terrible to admit that there are things about my life that I enjoy too much to give up in order to have a kid. Look, I like staying out late on the weekends without coming home if I want to. I like being free to quit my job and join the Peace Corps if I want to. I like being able to donate a (very) little bit of money to charities I care about. I like being able to skip a bill in favor of buying a pair of shoes that I totally don't need if I want to. I like feeling like I can leave my 401(k) to my best friend's son or my niece and my nephew or whoever I want to and it will not be expected, only appreciated. I like knowing that if I needed to take care of my parents as they get older that I'd be available to do so. I value my freedom and flexibility. I said I was too selfish to be a good parent, I didn't say I was too selfish to be a good person. Plenty of good people end up being bad parents - I'd like to avoid ever becoming one of them.

Sometimes I'll say, "I do not want to put my physical body through a pregnancy." That really raises the eyebrows. I know a lot of women who have had babies. Some of them loved being pregnant. Some of them hated it. All had struggles of some kind or another - either prior to, during, or after their pregnancies, and some of those struggles were very serious. To quote my best friend, "Growing a human being is hard." Damn straight it is, and I know I'm not up for the challenge. Plus, I like my body just the way it is and I'm not willing to upset the ecosystem by bearing a child. Post-baby bodies (and breasts, and vaginas, and hormones) are difficult to navigate. I'll pass.

I will often respond with, "I really can't afford to have a child," and then I get pooh-poohed, like kids aren't expensive as HELL, but I'm dead serious. Don't believe me? If I were to get pregnant this year I'd spend almost a quarter of a million dollars on the kid by the time it turned 17. That's an average of $12,800 a year for the next 18 years. I don't have that. I don't have anywhere close to that. Now if I didn't pay for the kid to go to college I'd save myself a good chunk of money, but considering what I spend each month on my own student loan payments and the even-increasing cost of a college education in this country, there is no way I'd willingly have a kid unless I could pay for all or most of its education. Even sans college the cost of raising a kid is over $8,000 a year, which is $8,000 a year more than I can afford. Would you encourage me to buy a house I couldn't afford? No. So stop encouraging me to have a kid I couldn't afford. (You can use this calculator to figure out what it would cost you to have a baby, if you're curious.)

The thing that is most annoying about telling people I don't want to have children is that they often assume that I don't like children, which couldn't be further from the truth. I love children! I look forward to being Aunt Maria to both real and honorary nieces and nephews for the rest of my life. I believe it is precisely because I respect and love children so much, and believe that every last baby on this planet ought to be born to parents who want it and will work as hard as they can all the days of their lives in order to care for it properly, that I don't want one of my own.

So it'd be nice if everyone, especially other women, could stop with all the questioning. Lay off with all the disbelief and insinuation - both subtle and overt - that my choice is somehow wrong or invalid just because it is not traditional. Because every time I'm unfairly judged that way it feels like a hit right to the babymaker.

More Comfortable and More Exciting

About a year and a half ago, one especially brilliant friend and I were discussing what it means when two people really love each other. More specifically, we were discussing how you can tell when a man is genuinely in love with you. For really real in love, in that mature, grownup way that happens rarely and is sought-after the world over.  There was some discussion that I don’t particularly remember (probably because my memory of it was eclipsed by what she said next), and then Ann dropped this little gem, “If a man is in love with you, he will use whatever resources are available to him – be it time, money or sheer creativity – in order to make your life more comfortable and more exciting.”

At the time this sounded logical.  Straightforward. Perfectly definitive!  And it resonated with me because most of the things that deeply troubled me in my past relationships related to incidents where I felt my former partners were behaving selfishly, inconsiderately, or both; occasions upon which my life was made decidedly less comfortable and markedly less exciting by their actions. If only I had been armed with this knowledge! I could have applied it to so many situations by asking myself, “Does he use his available resources to make my life better?” And after repeatedly answering in the negative, as I surely would have, perhaps I could have avoided investing so much time and effort in relationships that were always ever only going to fall apart.

I fell asleep that night thinking about her statement, and woke up the next morning still thinking about it, and I started wondering if these criteria for determining whether or not a man loves you were perhaps too simple? I mean, after so many years of attempting to figure this out through my personal experience I’d never come anywhere close to narrowing it down to one simple, all-encompassing sentence. Not to mention all my exploration through fictitious literature and film scenarios. If someone had asked me the day before our conversation how you know when someone is in love with you, I would have had only vague and flowery words to offer in response. Perhaps, “Oh, you just know when you know.” Or, “You can feel it in your bones.” Embarrassingly silly, I admit, yet sadly true.

But now, thanks to Ann, I had this new concept. This powerful idea that a true partner, someone who actually loves you as he says he does, will back up those words with deeds. He will walk the walk! And it will come naturally to him, both because of his genuine love and affection for you, and because he is not a total douchebag. I wasn’t looking in a mirror while pondering all of this, but I’m fairly sure my eyes were twinkling at the time, thinking of all the ways to use this wisdom in the future. The next time a potential love candidate showed up on my radar, I would know how to identify him. I put Ann’s words in my pocket that night and have been carrying them around with me for the past year and a half.

I used that time to make observations and test them against my new method. To my delight, I found a lot of love all around me. And when I say “a lot,” I mean a lot. It was abundant. The proof was in surprise, elaborate, or expensive (but always thoughtful) gifts for a partner’s birthday, Christmas or no particular reason at all. It was in offers to help with undesirable tasks – like staying up late on a school night to bake many dozens of cookies, doing loads upon loads of laundry, and helping someone move. It was in taking out the garbage without being asked to, planning surprise birthday parties, cooking a favorite meal, and saving the last bite. It was in finish line proposals, the exchanging of vows on Caribbean beaches, and in less traditional commitments. It was in hospital rooms at the birth of first babies.  It was in the building of plush dog houses for neighborhood strays.  It was in the opening of hard-to-open jars, and the checking of tire pressure that may be too low, and the purchasing of hard-to-afford plane tickets, and the bandaging of cuts, and the wiping of tears. It was so ubiquitous that I felt shame at my failure to notice it for such a long time.

And now I think it may be facing me. It’s possible that someone just might love me like that. He brings me pizza and “Say Anything” and Super Mario Brothers 3 when I’m sick. He kills spiders and reaches hard to reach items and lifts heavy boxes. He makes sure my bicycle tires have enough air in them and gives me pepper spray because he wants me to be safe. He accompanies me to Bed, Bath and Beyond and dances to Bruce Springsteen in the aisle and surprises me with fancy knives for no reason at the checkout counter. He never ruins the plot of a movie he’s seen that I haven’t. He snuggles with my cats. He makes me laugh. He spoons me. He sings along. He suggests a weekend trip to Chicago and a random lobster dinner and thinks I’m beautiful without an ounce of makeup on my cheeks. He is intelligent and generous and passionate and he makes my life both more comfortable and more exciting.

I win! He wins! We both win.

The Vagina Conversations

My dear friend Nik recently emailed me to let me know she will be performing in an upcoming production of The Vagina Monologues. Unfortunately I can’t attend to support her and her vagina (she lives 10 hours away), but her email made me realize that the reappearance of The Vagina Monologues in art culture at this moment in American history is extremely important. Perhaps more now than ever before.

I remember attending a production of TVM in college, when I was bright-eyed and innocent and struggling to develop and solidify my nascent opinions about the rights of women in America. I invited my mom to my college town for the Valentine’s Day performance because I thought she’d enjoy it (and probably also in the hope that she’d take me out for a dinner of higher quality than Ramen noodles, and foot the bill), and she had the misfortune to trip and fall in the aisle of the theater. (Don't worry, she was OK.) Having inherited her charming clumsiness myself, she often recollects this event when one of us trips or falls but she gets the name wrong, calling it alternately, “The Vagina Dialogues,” or, “The Vagina Conversations.”

It seems that each day’s news brings me more information about American politicians – especially male politicians – who could probably benefit from a straightforward conversation with an American vagina or two. Men who claim that it oppresses their right to religious freedom to have to provide health insurance that covers contraception. Men who want women seeking an abortion to submit to an invasive and medically unnecessary ultrasound, be lectured on the parts of the fetus, and then wait 24 hours before being able to have the procedure. Men who declare that they want abortion to be illegal, while simultaneously slashing funding for programs like sex education, preventive health care for women, and accessible contraception – three things that are proven to reduce the occurrence of abortion. In other words, men who really hate women who enjoy having sex just for the pure physical and emotional enjoyment it brings. Men who hate women like me, who subscribe to no religion, derive great pleasure from non-marital sex, and are childless and prefer to keep it that way, thankyouverymuch.

As the national discourse on this topic, which is unfairly dominated by close-minded men, continues to escalate, I find myself experiencing a multitude of emotions.  They range from disbelief (Are you fucking kidding me?) to utter outrage (ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?). Yet more than anything else I keep returning to disappointment of a magnitude that I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced before. I’m disappointed in the group of politicians who are waging this war against women, and I’m disappointed that there has not been an uproar so deafeningly loud that it instantly silenced those very same politicians. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it is extraordinarily unlikely that I will be able to convince anyone who disagrees with me to see things from my perspective. They seem to have their beliefs (and inevitably their religion) and they are holding on tight and closing their eyes and shaking their heads and that is pretty much that.

But what about the people who agree with me and somehow aren’t incensed enough to be screaming at the tops of their lungs about these state-sponsored abuses? Being an optimist I have to believe that there are enough people, women especially, who possess the minimum amount of required common sense to see that the political agenda being proposed and executed by religious conservatives across the country is disrespectful, abusive, and short-sighted. Why aren’t they following Nik’s lead and finding a production of The Vagina Monologues in which to participate? Why aren’t they speaking up on their Facebook pages and blogs and writing letters to their elected officials (my current preferred methods of civil discourse)? Why aren’t they livid and letting everyone know about it?

Perhaps it’s because, like the majority of women in America, they don’t believe they will really ever need or want to get an abortion. And since they already have to pay their $30 co-pay for their birth control pill each month, it’s not too terrible a stretch to have to spend another $30 to cover the whole cost. Maybe the added expenditure each month is worth it to avoid a series of uncomfortable conversations with their families, friends, co-workers, and community members.  It’s also possible that – what with the time and effort women are spending pursuing education, starting and maintaining strong careers, supporting spouses and partners, and raising children – they simply don’t have the time or energy to put up a fight.

But maybe it’s even worse than that. Maybe it’s because they are worried that they will be further and publicly insulted and disrespected and just prefer not to subject themselves to any more nonsense than they’ve already had to endure – like being accused of being a slut, as Sandra Fluke recently was by Rush Limbaugh, or being wrongly characterized as a group of human beings too ignorant to decide for themselves what’s best for their bodies and their lives and their families. If this is part of the reason for what I believe to be relative silence on the part of many people (especially women!) who ought to be speaking up, then I have some words of encouragement: What a woman consents to do with her vagina and with whom she consents to do those things is nobody’s fucking business except hers and the person or people with whom she does whatever it is she’s doing. If I want to have a lot of sex and never want to have a baby that is MY business. If YOU don’t believe that contraception is moral, then YOU don’t have to use it. And that is your business. If YOU don’t believe that abortion is moral, then YOU don’t have to get one. And that is your business. It seems that some politicians and leaders of conservative thought in this country need to be constantly reminded of this. So let's remind them.

When I read articles like this one I feel like I’ve woken up in some terrible episode of The Twilight Zone. This is 2012, right? We live in the United States of America, right? Are men REALLY still THIS threatened by female sexuality? After how hard we’ve worked as a nation to promote the rights of women, are we seriously letting this happen? We must stop it, and to do that we have to speak up. We have to speak out. We have to DO something – lots of things! So I’ll ask you, please, please, email your representatives in Congress. Share this blog post with someone. Donate to Planned Parenthood. Tweet a news article that you think is important. Or, you know, go all out and do ALL of those things, and then participate in a performance of The Vagina Monologues like my homegirl Nik.

Make Up/Makeup/Can't Make It Up

Make Up

When a man with whom you are in love comes to you, at long last, with an open heart and asks you take a leap of faith, what do you do? Do you hesitate, doubting, questioning, fearful of being hurt again? Do you take the leap and never think twice? Or something in between? If you're me you close your eyes, cross your fingers, kiss him, and jump.  You make up, and make love, and hope for the best. After proceeding with cautious optimism for a probably-not-long-enough amount of time, you may find yourself driving one day, as I did yesterday, smiling harder than you have in recent memory. You just may catch yourself thinking, "This might be really real this time. This time, it really might be."

Makeup

What is it about a man looking at you with desire and saying, "You don't need any makeup," that makes it the greatest compliment on the face of the planet? Sitting in the passenger seat of his car, bare cheeks illuminated by the lit up dashboard instruments, he kisses you goodnight and you feel beautiful - without having taken any steps to look especially beautiful. The ability to be comfortable in your own skin, imperfect as it invariably is, is a rare commodity in a romantic relationship. It was the nicest thing a man has said to me in a very long time. Because it was genuine.

Can't Make It Up

The journey that has brought me to this point has been difficult. Back and forth and up and down and full of laughter and tears. I know that any number of things could go wrong -- including things I have had some indication of already, and those things which will inevitably come as a surprise. But I'll never know how the story ends until I actually let it begin. I can't make it up, I just have to live it.