Fan Mail

And when I said that I was going to have a blog post every day starting December 16th, I meant December 17th. I really did. I meant that I would start this endeavor on the first day of my break, which is today, the 17th. I apologize for any confusion and beg your forgiveness.

How to start this habit of daily blogging? Not sure. First I’ll have to start a habit of daily writing. What will I write about? Prepare for things to get a lot more mundane around here. But first, I thought I’d answer some fan mail. This one is from a lady named Tancy who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Dear Melba,

I’m a huge fan. How do you manage to post a blog entry every other month or so, while being a mediocre law student, working between 5 and 15 hours a week , going to yoga classes here and there, running and swimming when the mood strikes, and ignoring your family? Keep up your amazing work!

Fondly,

Tancy in Tulsa



Dear TIT,

Thanks so much for your letter. It ain’t easy, let me tell you. I couldn’t do what I do without my amazing self-discipline. I start every morning by opening my eyes, removing my headgear, and setting one intention for the day. My daily intention could be anything. Sometimes it’s ambitious, like last Tuesday when I set out to count how many times I heard the word “yonder” during the day. Other times it’s totally whimsical like last Wednesday when I set out to inflect the second syllable of every word regardless of where the inflection normally occurs. After intention setting, I do seven sit-ups. Then I head to the bathroom. [This portion removed by site moderator.] By the time I’m done there, it’s dinner time and I choose between a Hot Pocket or a Lean Cuisine, depending on my mood. If I’m not too full, I eat ¾ of an ice cream sandwich and throw the stub in a shopping bag that I keep in the freezer. (When the kids come over, I pull out the bag and let them have an all-you-can-eat-stub fest.) After dinner, I select a piece of classical literature from my collection of leather bound classical literature. I recline on my chaise lounge and wait for a boy to pop by to whom I will say, “Oh, I was just reclining on my chaise catching up on my Thucydides.”

This is what works for me and keeps me going. It’s different for everyone. Find what works for you, stick to it, and then you’ll find that all your hopes and dreams are within reach.

Kindly,

Melba

Things you might not know about me because they are not generally known because they are not true:

• I am a fitness fanatic.
• I live for college football.
• I take personal hygiene very seriously.
• I love cats and all small furry animals.
• I am trilingual.
• I am in Paris doing research for my fourth novel.
• I am allergic to nuts.
• I unicycle everywhere I go year-round.

She called me a what?

A writer! But I haven't posted in over 2 months...because I haven't written ANYTHING in that time.

What have I been up to in that time? Not studying. Hanging out with a boy. Riding bikes with friends. A good bit of yoga. Cooking and eating. Lots of cooking and lots of eating. And then pooping.

I recently deactivated my facebook account. I deactivated on "Black Friday" because I was seeing too many shopping and sales related status updates. Facebook made me realize that most people are much less interesting than they appear from a distance and that an alarming number of people with whom I interact on a daily basis do not distinguish between "your" and "you're" or "there" and "their."

I've tried to deactivate before but then I reactivate 5 minutes later just to see if anyone posted a photo of me or wrote a lame comment about someone else's lame status update. This time though, I announced that I was going off and that announcement has kept me true to my word (for the most part). And so I will make an announcement here to set a little goal for myself. During my upcoming winter break (December 16th to January 8th), I will post something everyday.

Here is something from earlier today.

Do I have to reproduce? Will I get bored if I don’t? Is there someone who would be with me and not reproduce with me? What will I do when my dinner mates start talking about soccer games and picking colleges? I will do the same thing I do now when they start talking about football. I will avert my eyes and wait it out. My eyes will be averted for forever.

Dear Cat,

The thing that I said I was going to write about has already been written about too much.

Here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=dowd&st=cse

And here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcus-buckingham/whats-happening-to-womens_b_289511.html

The reason I thought this might be something worth writing about is that I keep having the same conversation with all of the smart, self-aware women I know. The topic: why is it so much work to be happy?

It’s whiney, anyway. And I think the explanation is simple. In this day in age, only stupid people are happy. There are fewer stupid women than stupid men, so there are fewer happy women than happy men.

To the women before me

Thank you
for clearing the branches off the trail,
for wiping down the table before I sat down to eat,
for flushing the floater down the toilet even though it wasn’t yours,
for speaking up when something wasn’t right,
for thinking of others without sacrificing any part of yourself,
for showing them all that you could do so that the same would be expected of me.

Screw you
for playing into stereotypes because then they were projected onto me,
for acting less intelligent than you are,
for just going along with things,
for settling,
for always buying what they are selling,
for making thinness your greatest achievement.

For the women after me

I remember the first time I heard her say she hates her body. It was in a dream. She said she hated her webbed feet. Even though she doesn’t have webbed feed, I woke up with a feeling of dread because of the inevitability of my six-year old niece one day coming to disdain a part or parts or the entirety of her body and then carrying that disdain around for the rest of her life. Can it be prevented? Currently, she spends hours looking in the mirror, loves her naked body, and flashes and shakes her little butt because doing so makes her happy. How can we prolong this celebration? We (you, me, my sisters and mother) must be models of self-love. We must celebrate ourselves every day and feel nothing but gratitude for our functioning, funny-looking, abundant, flat, hairy, smelly, beautiful bodies.

What does it take

A beautiful woman’s body is attacked by breast cancer. She and the doctors get the cancer out of her body and she regains her strength. I tell her she looks great, and she says she feels great. But then she says she needs to lose ten more pounds. I want to shake her: But you are alive! Is it not enough that after attack and then radiation your body is now dancing to the music and laying in the grass? If surviving cancer is not enough to quiet the incessant voice in a woman’s head that tells her that there is too much of her, is there any hope for me to quiet the voice in my head?