How to Party With an Infant Read Free Page B

misinterpretations.
    Take this mother at an SFMC meeting who happened to read my blog post on sake-steamed halibut and separation anxiety.
    “Thank God someone’stalking about babies sucking the life right out of you,” she said.
    “Um,” I said. “That’s not really . . . I was just writing about fish and soba—”
    “Your life is gone. Just gone,” she said, looking off into the distance; then she rubbed her hands together and said, “You are so bad!”
    People like it when other people are bad. It lets them off the hook. But I’m not bad. I’m just listening and looking around. I hope, when Ellie starts school, I can find a way to put this to use. While my parents won’t let us go hungry, I want to do something with my life—I want to raise Ellie well and I want her to have a mom who does more than raise her. I went to grad school to be a writer, and I guess I still want now what I wanted then: to write about my woes, yet use structures and plots and characters that make them your woes as well. I want to reveal something true. I want you to turn the page.
What inspired you to work on an SFMC cookbook? What will make it different from other cookbooks?
    When I heard about the competition, I thought, How lame, and then: How lame if someone else won and got a book contract out of this! And so I thought I’d give it a go and try to come up with an original angle.
    It happened that the very day I decided to embark upon this culinary journey my ex, Bobby Morton, was coming over to see Ellie (for the first time in two weeks) and so I thought I’d go ahead and freshen up a little. I’d clean the apartment, blow out my hair, put on some lipstick, and, um, go out and wax my privates. I had never done this before.
    Within one minute of meeting my waxer I was on a bed, naked from the waist down, and her hand was on my parts. She had a thickhead of hair and red lips and smelled like a scratch-and-sniff sticker. I was trying to think of something to say, but all that came to mind was “So, have you seen any good ones lately?”
    She took me seriously and told me who she knows, who she waxes—I guess there wasn’t client-waxer privilege. She was telling me what was “in” these days, which made me think of women requesting long layers or a bob, but I didn’t really hear what she was saying because she poured the burning wax onto my skin, and holy fuckface, all thoughts disappeared. She placed a strip on my (God I hate this word) labia and pulled—rip!—and holy Whitney Houston I was angry at this woman! I wanted retro bush to be “in” so she’d be shit out of a job! Why do people regularly subject themselves to this? Why was I torturing myself for Bobby? He left me, and even if he hadn’t, he never needed incentive. In fact, to avoid pregnancy I should have gotten myself a reverse Brazilian. What would that be? A Greek? An Armenian?
    I was in so much pain. I almost told her to stop, but it was too late because then I’d look like I had mange.
    “Should I keep a strip, make a triangle, or take it all off?” she asked.
    “Take it all,” I whimpered, not because I’m stoic or anything, but because I don’t get the little landing strip thing. Can you imagine if we shaved our armpits but left a strip of hair? Or shaved our legs but left a hairy triangle?
    Before I went in, I asked the moms in my playgroup, “Why do people get this done?”
    “Who knows?” Barrett said. “To feel clean? Gary’s lucky if I bathe. He doesn’t care.”
    “Maybe it’s like getting a haircut or highlights,” Georgia said. “You’re taking care of yourself. But I guess you can’t really show everyone the results as you would with highlights.”
    “It’s not like a haircut,” Annie said. “My hairdresser doesn’t tell meto hold my butt cheek while she waxes my asshole. You do it for the guys. They like it for the same reason they like you to swallow. It’s porno. It’s that special thing.”
    “I don’t