You know those people who always surprise you with their age because they look so much younger than they really are? I am not one of those people. I am 38, in a month I will be 39, and so far everyone believes me when I tell them this, and so I have never been tempted to lie about my age. But I am amazed at the vast number of people who do.
Having been raised in India I never thought being old was a bad thing. If you were old everyone listened to you because they had to, and you basically got away with saying any damn thing and doing any damn thing. My dad smoked, drank and swore as much as he pleased because he could – it was a privilege he had earned. From my perspective, being older seemed like a major advantage. But in the west old age is not part of life, it’s an embarrassing disease that no one wants to admit to. It freaks us out. It scares us. And so we all run around spouting idiotic nonsense like ’40 is the new 30’ but secretly we want to be 20 and look 16.
When did we start pandering to this whole ’40 is the new 30’ shit? And do we seriously even believe it? If 40 is the new 30, then I am guessing that 50 is the new 40, and so on, until being dead is actually being alive for 10 more years. None of this makes any sense and it just pisses me off! I am angry because the ONLY reason for the existence of phrases like ’40 is the new 30’ is simply to make people who are aging feel better about themselves, because aging by definition is supposed to be the worst thing that can happen to anyone.
The obsession with youth is an epidemic, it’s not just stupid it’s embarrassing, and with all the plastic that we can now inject and implant it is getting bizarre. The medical community has practically banded together to provide us with a million and one ways to physically cling to an age in our lives that we think looks good. If you have some money and no fear of needles or blood you can fool yourself into believing anything.
Being older doesn’t bother me. I mean sure, I wish I had used more sun-block, I wish I hadn’t smoked a single cigarette, and I wish I had listened when someone once casually mentioned that if I didn’t watch it my c*&t would sag, but that’s just me whinging over spilt milk. Overall it’s not so bad, for one thing I am still around – isn’t that nice to think about sometimes? And, I am now officially old enough to make excuses for myself based on age.
“Look how high his ass is!”
“Oh please he’s 20! Lets see what that ass looks like when he’s MY age.”
“She just ran the Boston marathon, sub 3.”
“Oh please, she’s 12, lets see what happens when she’s MY age.”
Oh yes, I like using my age – it’s mine and I’ll do as I please with it. Which is why I don’t dye my hair. I am too tired to add one more thing to my stress list. People notice my grey hair and some of them cannot believe I would walk around with this much of it and not try to hide it, but if I were a man my hair would be sexy! Salt and pepper! Isn’t that something ladies?!
“Well I suppose we have George Clooney to thank for that” were my friend Vish’s words of wisdom when I brought this to his attention. And indeed he and his ilk do owe handsome George quite a lot. But what about us? Where are those ’40 is the new 30’ women? Where are our role models?
Yesterday on the subway I saw what looked like a 4 year old with her very hip looking mommy. I couldn’t tell how old the mother was but I could tell a few things. Her hair was colored, her lips had been plumped, and there was plenty of evidence that Botox had been used liberally. I imagine that this woman will continue to add to her face as the years go by and that is her business, the way my grey hair is mine, but I wonder if she cares about the message she is sending her daughter. I may be wrong but she struck me as the type of mother who would never be caught dead with a ciggie in front of her kid, but big balloon lips in the name of youth – I guess that is OK.
Like all self-respecting human I go through my moments of low self-respect. Some moments are longer than others, lasting from a few hours to several months at a time. My self-respect is a fragile element dependent on various fantasies that I try to keep alive. These fantasies have to do mostly with my appearance and can unravel at any time.
On some days it is the monthly bloat that leaves me feeling marginally bad about myself. On others, the simple task of purchasing a pair of jeans results in a major crash (a more in depth description may be found in http://radvazblog.com/2009/12/09/mind-the-gap/). And when in a particularly vulnerable mood simply walking down a New York street, populated by beautiful women and even more beautiful men, makes me want to rush home and slit my wrists with my Venus Divine 3-Blade with Moisture Strip razor.
As I get older I will admit that these crashes are far less frequent. Age you see brings acceptance. Plus I have my one-woman show these days and the feeling of accomplishment has made buying jeans less of an issue. But every once in a while I shock even myself with how little it can take for me to think poorly of me. A couple of weeks ago I was at the Union Square children’s park, properly accompanied by a child, its mother and the mother’s friend. We were enjoying a little gossip when I realized I needed to pee. The toilet at the park was broken so I would have to sneak in to one of the many restaurants, pretending to be a patron in order to use the facilities.
“You guys I’m going to run over to McDonalds and use the loo.”
“YUCK! Don’t go there it’s disgusting. Go to Coffee Shop.” My friend’s friend suggested.
‘Coffee Shop’! Did she say ‘Coffee Shop’? To those who may not know Coffee Shop is a coffee shop (they were too cool to bother with actually naming it)where the wait-staff not just look like models but actually are models. The best looking patrons are seated outside in the sunlight for passersby to gape at and admire, slightly less beautiful people are inside and the truly hideous appear to be hidden away at the very back of the store. I do not know any of this for certain, but it is a sense I get. I rarely go to Coffee Shop because if I want coffee I usually look like I need it, and they do not allow people who look like that in there. And now I was being told to try and sneak in and use the lav! This girl was talking crazy.
‘Really? Do you think they would mind?’
‘Noooo – I go there all the time.’
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
By now she was looking at me as if I were a slow learner and so to save face off I went. As I ventured over I had a little chat with myself, “Listen you! If she can go to Coffee Shop to pee and get away with it so can you. You are a decent, clean person, why would you think you wouldn’t be able to simply walk in, pee and walk out.” But as soon as I was across the street from Coffee Shop I started to worry. I was clearly an imposter and the models guarding the door against riff-raff would surly pick me out a mile away. It was bad enough being sent to sit at the back of the shop but to get caught in an attempt to relieve myself would be infinitely more humiliation than I could tolerate.
I could see it all unfold.
‘Attention! Security! There is an short-haired, woman, striped sun-dress and no make up who is clearly not a paying customer here but trying to use our toilets! Get her out before she makes this whole place uncool.’
Self-respect plummeting, I scuttled off in the opposite direction to the McDonalds across the street, where I bravely got in line with my people to use the bog.
I used to make fun of people who bought exercise equipment named Ab Circle Pro, or weight loss pills called Lipofuze or Metabo EXTREME Fat Burner, or work out videos with titles like Destroy Only The Fat Cells (OK I made up this one up but you get the picture). I used to judge these people, call them stupid and wonder about the state of their minds. How could intelligent folks get suckered so hard in to this game that basically preys on desperation? After all, let’s face it, you have to be pretty desperate to believe that a tablet is going to get rid of that paunch.
Until I became desperate.
You see I had just completed my annual medical check-up. I am 37 years old, 5 feet and 6 inches tall and weigh 128 pounds – my fighting weight (as I like to call it) from when I was in college. The only problem is that now most of that weight is in the form of pure cellulite. Yes my dear reader (or readers if there is more than one) I am a skinny lady who sags. And it breaks my heart because I am one of those people who exercises regularly. I enjoy exercise. At first I did it to stay skinny, then to ward of depression, and now I use to stay away from drugs and alcohol (which as we all know has not been as successful). But regardless of my reasons I like how it makes me feel. The problem is I don’t look as good as I feel and so I became one of those desperate people.
This happened on Monday at 6pm. I had a waxing appointment at Bliss Spa. After I had been tortured by the lovely and amazing Beata I went to pay my bill and it was here in the lobby that I came face to face with a product designed by Bliss Spa that made me lose my mind – the fatgirlslimulator. This magical creation is a circulation and stimulation tool for leaner looking legs (says so on the box).
I heard angels sing. This is what I had been waiting for. If I used this ‘rubber cellulite scrubber’ everyday then I would be able to (in time of course) get rid of the cellulite! Plus, it said to use the gizmo in the shower so no additional time needed. This thing had been designed with me in mind. It was calling my name. I had to have it.
Later that evening I proudly showed my husband my fatgirlslimulator.
You know this won’t actually work right?
I ignored him. What did he know? He had no idea how hard I planned to scrub my ass and thighs the next day. I would show him! And I did. The following day I scrubbed and rubbed with so much enthusiasm and vigor that I may have taken some skin off. But I didn’t care. No pain no gain.
I intend to use my fatgirlslimulator regularly. I believe in it. Call it blind faith. I don’t care – I have nothing else.
I am a devoted viewer of Bravo TVs Real Housewives series. It’s a reality show that focuses on the lives and loves of a group of spoilt, rich, self-centered lunatics who SO do not give a shit about what anyone thinks that they go out of their way to be even more themselves. It’s too generous and too much fun to pass up. Each week as I watch these ladies shop, party and malign each other behind each others’ backs I feel an occasional pang of jealousy. You see all of them have big boobs and I have a major case of boob envy.
I am a straight woman who is obsessed with breasts. If there is a boob in the vicinity I will stare at it although I am partial to a D+ cup size. If I am in a conversation with a woman I find myself examining her bosom constantly. It is an awful affliction that I have to live with and the reason I am so fixated with boobage is because I wasn’t raised in a nice flat chested country like Japan or China. I was raised in India where it felt like ALL the women had big, bountiful boobs.
When my parents bought me my first Barbie doll – ‘Ballerina Barbie’ – I immediately locked myself in the bathroom, ripped her tutu off and subjected her to a mammogram. I would stare at my boney chest in the mirror and hope that one day I too would have what she had. Now I know that this may seem like an early age to worry about breasts but I had already spent a lot of my time locked in bathrooms trying on my mother’s bras which is what got me worried about my future in the first place. She wasn’t that well endowed herself. I saw the other mothers marching about showing off their cleavages and I felt bad because as a family we were thoroughly unimpressive.
I entered my teens and then proceeded in to my late-teens flat as a board. I went to a boarding school where I shared a dorm with 14 other girls. With the exception of a few other unfortunates they all had boobs, and bras in to which they would put these boobs each day. Back then we didn’t have trainer bras in India, we didn’t have anything that could help a flat chested girl feel like one of the crowd. I had to wear – I hate having to even think about it – a child sized wife beater like the boys. And to make sure I never lost these valuable items my mother had helpfully embroidered R. VAZ in caps, in red on the right chest area.
It wasn’t like I was miserable about this all day everyday but now and then something would happen to showcase my inadequacies. We all wore white shirts for sporting activities and one day as we were playing hockey, and all the girls bouncing about in their bras except for me, it began to rain. It was a full on downpour and in minutes it was like a wet t-shirt contest. Everyone ran to take cover in the gym. Where ALL the boys were. My top was soaked and the R.VAZ was glowing through like a neon sign. I was mortified – now the whole school would know that I did not wear a bra. They had probably guessed this but now it would be confirmed.
I begged with a friend to give me her sweater – she had huge boobs and surely would not mind showing them off. She looked at me like I was insane.
If I take it off you can see can see everything! My shirt is wet and there are guys in the gym!
What?! Wasn’t the whole point of having boobs for boys to look at? We were 14 years old what else were we going to do with our boobs anyway? I never understood it and I never forgave her.
I still don’t get women who complain about having boobs that are ‘too big’.
Oh Radhika you are so lucky you can wear anything – you don’t even need a bra.
Or girls who complain about the ‘wrong kind of attention’.
I can’t believe that guy! He was staring at my chest the whole time – I was like excuse me my eyes are up here.
You know what – stop whinging and be grateful. Be grateful you have boobs and be grateful that someone is staring at them. Eye contact is over rated – trust me.
This past week a friend proposed to his lady love. He proposed in Central Park with a ring and a poem that he wrote himself. After she said yes he took her back to his place where he busted out the champagne and cup-cakes (from Magnolia Bakery because she loved those). Instead of being happy for them I was green with envy. I have been married five years, I have no romantic interest at all in this friend of mine and I will go on record here to say I like his fiancé – BUT I was jealous. I was jealous because I was forced to recollect how I was proposed to.
My husband and I already lived together at the time and happened to be in the middle of a major fight. We had spent two days ignoring each other – a pretty considerable feat given the size of our living quarters. On the third day of the stand-off he suggested to me (in his usual condescending tone that always makes it sound like I am the crazy one) that we should perhaps talk about what the problem was. We could not do this at home because we had a close friend of his staying with us and so he suggested we leave the apartment. We live by Battery Park (good view of Lady Liberty) and so that is where we went to settle the score. Better to create a scene in front of complete strangers than in front of people you know.
‘What seems to be the problem?’
‘What seems to be the problem is you are a condescending prick and I am sick of it.’
‘Listen Radhika, this type of abuse is not helpful.’
‘Well it’s helpful to me.’
‘Calm down.’
There are few words in the English language that get a bigger reaction out of me than ‘calm down’, ‘chill out’ and ‘relax’.
‘You calm down, you shit head! – And by the way the next time one of your stupid friends has a question about when it is that we plan to get married, make sure they direct that to you because I am sick of telling them that I am living with a man who has no interest in marrying me.’
Long pause.
‘Well – that was something I had been thinking about. But I didn’t know exactly how to bring it up.’
I could not believe it was happening. I was being proposed to by someone who had no idea how to and so now it was up to me to drag a proposal out of him. I felt like a tug-boat bringing the cruise ship in to the Hudson.
‘Are you asking me to marry you?’
‘Yes.’
Being the desperate, needy female that I am I said ‘Yes please’ and then called all my parents, his parents and my girl-friends before he could change his mind. This was my proposal. No ring, no poem, no champagne and no bloody cup-cakes.
Can you imagine? I had to show up at work the next day – in a New York advertising agency that was full to the brim with girls whose boy-friends had really put in the work to become fiancés – with this!
In the retelling of the tale I had no choice but to embellish it with elements of romance that I imagined would make an appearance at the most average of proposals. Plus, being a girl who always looked for a silver lining when it came to the dark clouds of my relationship, I thought that at the very least it was unique. Until Seal proposed to Heidi Klum in a motherfucking igloo.
Women like having a story. We want our girl-friends to think that you really thought about marrying us. That you obsessed about it, that all your friends were part of helping you plan, that for once you stopped trying to be cool and instead finally turned in to a pussy with a ring, a poem and cup-cakes (sorry Sanju!).
If you want us to love you forever then make the proposal special or your wife will write a blog about it.
Good luck Sanju and Monika. I love you guys – it’s just my husband I’m fighting with.
They say a human being’s personality is a function of many things: birth order, race, religion, sex, socio-economic background, etc. This is crap. My personality wasn’t shaped by anything – it was forced upon me by my appearance.
Visually I peaked at age 4 and then went into steep decline. For a young girl I bore an uncanny resemblance to my father and so my adolescence was spent looking like a teenaged drag queen. This, along with a tragic over-bite, one eye brow, and a humiliatingly flat chest set the stage for who I was to become: a woman constantly over-compensating for being the least attractive 15 year old in the room.
If I were good looking on the other hand I wouldn’t have had to bother. And by ‘good looking’ I don’t mean attractive or cute or she-has-her-own-style, I mean full blown sexy-gorgeous. The kind of woman who – no matter how much trouble you have taken to look fantastic – will make you wish you were dead. These are the girls who constantly complain about how men are always hitting on them, how they never know if a man likes them for who they are, and how men spend entire conversations staring at their tits instead of into their eyes. These are the idiots who have no FUCKING idea how over rated eye contact is. These are the girls I want to look like.
I am fed up of how easy it is for them and how exhausting it is for me. These people don’t have to be fun, or funny or interesting. They don’t even have to be nice. A beautiful woman can walk in to a party and look like she would rather be asleep and the host will be grateful to her. In the mean time because of the way things have panned out for me I had better bloody well bring it because as a not-sexy-gorgeous woman it’s my job. It’s the least I can do.
And this is not all in my head. A few months ago I was involved in a discussion with two male friends about how they rate women. They went through a long list of ladies they knew rating them one by one. I humbly awaited my rating. Friend X said he would give me an 8 on 10. I was thrilled, I was over the moon, and I was able to enjoy this compliment for a very brief moment because the other friend, Friend Y expressed extreme vocal shock that someone would give me an 8. In his view I was a 6 or 6.5 at best. Then Friend X, not wanting to look like he had low standards, defended his argument by saying that what he meant was with my personality and everything (‘everything’?) I could be an 8.
It reminds me of a system we had in college that allowed the slackers an opportunity to up their GPA by committing to several hours of social work. An opportunity I grabbed with both hands. Clearly my life was, and continues to be, a long list of things that have to be added up to make the end result palatable. I have to add my personality, general good health and career prospects to get to an 8. So yes – personality is everything – because for some of us it has to be.
