I Ain't Sayin She a Gold-Digger. Oh Wait. Yeah I Am.

As someone writing her Master's thesis on post-college marriage mania (a phrase I made up, thankyouverymuch), I can't help but be attuned to the relationship-status changes on Facebook from "In a Relationship" to "Engaged."

Another young woman in my network recently got herself ringed. Like many of the newly-fianced I see, she is younger than me. (My 10th grade self would not be pleased. A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon an entry in my diary in which I wrote, to my future self, not to worry about the stupid boy I had a crush on because when I'm twenty-five, "I will have a gorgeous fiance." Nope.)

I've asked the question many times--why are these girls getting married at 23/24/25? (The religious reasons, I understand. I'm talking about the girls who have clearly lost their viriginty some time ago.) I typically look at the gal's photos to get some clues. Sometimes I see vacations to tropical locales. Sometimes there are private planes. Diamonds the size of dimes. Lacoste polos. Lots of Ralph Lauren. The girl is typically gorgeous. The guy is so-so at best. This is where my stomach gets queasy.

These girls are gold-diggers, whether they want to admit it or not.

Call my attitude bitter, bitchy, whatever. But, as someone who has been on the other side, someone who has been called a gold-digger (by her own sorority sisters, mind you), I feel like this is my terrain.

I've done the private plane thing. The VIP, field-access, secret-entrance, back-door, special-pass-only, front-of-the-line, only-this-key-gets-you-in, open-sesame song and dance. It gets old. Saying this isn't a stab at the boyfriend who allowed me to learn this lesson, it's just something I know to be true. Money can't buy me love. When you marry a man for his--or his parents'--money, (and I'm not calling anyone out specifically, just talking about this as an idea), money is what you get. For some people, that's enough.

Private planes don't cultivate passion. Vacation homes don't get me hot. Diamond rings don't give me butterflies. It's only the man himself who can electrify your every cell with one brush of his lips on your collarbone, one word whispered in your ear, one look.

This is one more thing I've learned in my twenty-five years: If I had to choose, I would rather simply screw a guy I was crazy about than be stuck married to a rich dude with the sexual capacity of a snail.

Just sayin.

Still Feministing

In college, I joined an amazing feminist group called VDAY USC, which is part of a global organization started by the incomparable, goddess-like Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues. I became a crazy women's libber pretty much instantly when I became a Vagina Warrior, as we liked to call ourselves. Not to brag, but I yelled at members of the Republican Youth Majority, as well as the freaky Jesus guys touting big signs through campus proclaiming we were all going to burn in Hell's fire, wore a shirt that said, "Eat Out More Often, and broadcasted the word "vagina" in the middle of USC trying to sell tickets for our performances of the monologues.

I felt extremely cool and important, like I was doing something that mattered. And while screaming the word "vagina" probably wasn't going to change the world, I believed the work I, and my fellow warriors, did during those years was very important in raising awareness about violence against women, even just in the immediate campus community. (On that note, I would just like to say, to whoever reads this thing, but more to my Vagina Warriors, the experiences I had with VDAY were by far the most enriching of my USC career. I think about you, very fondly, very often.)

Anyway, to stop reminiscing and get to my point, because I will never shed that part of me who spoke my mind about women's issues to whoever would listen (and, let's be honest, coerced those who wouldn't), I want to bring attention to the current situation in Afghanistan. Basically, a law was passed that requires women to have sex with their husbands at least every four days, unless they have some kind of medical issue that would prevent them from doing so, which condones, and in fact encourages, marital rape. This is exactly the type of legislation that provoked Eve Ensler to write The Vagina Monologues (and after, The Good Body) and to turn her desire to end violence against women into a global organization.

And not only did the law pass, but the women protesting its passage are being pelted with rocks and disrespected with slurs by both men and women. The whole situation is disgusting on so many levels. I urge you all to read this story about the situation and to log onto VDAY's website to learn more about what you can do to make the world a safer, healthier place for women to grow and thrive.

If anything, this story is a reminder to me that while I may not be a practicing Vagina Warrior, I need to actively participate in the fight to end this type of heinous disrespect, violence, and disregard towards women. The fight is far from over.

An Open Letter

Dear [insert name of guy I have dated/am dating/will date],

How are you? Hope you're doing well. I'm pretty good myself. Doing a little blogging, a little teaching, finishing grad school.

Anyway. The reason I am writing to you is to apologize. I have this new blog called The Little Black Blog of Big Red Flags, and you're probably going to be written about at some point. If I haven't written about you already. You may or may not be comfortable with this, which is why I am saying sorry preemptively.

But before you click the link and try to figure out which of the nearly 50 posts are about you, let me just say this: I am not writing about you out of spite, anger, or vindication. You are a great guy in many ways. In some other ways, you are not so great, just like everyone else.

In fact, I thought I would take this opportunity to list some reasons why I am not so great, just to make you feel better:

1. Sometimes when we talk on the phone I will tell you to hold on while I have a full conversation with my roommate and laugh with her about some inside joke, while you wait for us to finish, which I'm sure is really annoying.

2. I read into everything you do way too much.

3. I joke around a lot, and will poke fun at you, which apparently comes off to some as passive aggressive but really isn't. I just think I'm funnier than I am.

4. If you so much as look at another girl, not to mention talk to her, joke with her, or touch her in any way, I will assume you: a) Want to sleep with her or b) Already have. I won't say anything to you about this, I will just be kinda bitchy for a minute. (And, yes, that is passive aggressive.)

5. I let my dog kiss my on the mouth. And drink from my water glass.

And those are just from the top of my head. The point is, I have this blog, and you're going to be on it, so please don't be mad at me. Really, the blog isn't even about you. It's about women coming together to commiserate about the stupid things you guys do to us (like, maybe don't do those things and blogs like this wouldn't have to exist). It's about me wanting to get a book deal and make lots and lots of money.

I mean, hey, feel free to start a blog of your own. You can even use my five flags above to get you started.

lots of love,
Natasha

I'm Just a Straight-A Gal

I've figured out the source of my pessimism. My breasts. Well, my non-breasts.

(By the way, I hate the word "breasts." And now I'm going to write a post in which I say it repeatedly. Great. Just great.)

Anyway. As a young girl, I was never hideous, per say, but I wasn't the cutest chick in the class. So hard to imagine, I know, given my timeless beauty as an adult, but try to suspend reality for a minute here. Right before I entered fourth grade, at a new school, I'd had 17 teeth pulled, because, if I hadn't I would have had three rows of teeth, and would have looked somewhat shark-like I imagine, which meant that I had one molar in each of the back corners of my mouth and eight front teeth, four top, four bottom. Hot. I also had a half-grown-out perm, which made my head look like one of those gradated pyramids. My clothes were from stores like Ross and TJMaxx, which mimicked the current fashions but not enough to pass me off as cool in any way. In short, my general appearance was not a good look.

Then, in fifth grade, we had the sex talk at school. We were given a little pamphlet about a girl named Karen. Karen was super-cool because she was already in middle school and got her period. And, she had breasts.

I was convinced that having breasts would change my life. No longer would I be skinny and awkward, shaped like a hot dog, straight up and down. I would be curvy, womanly, sexy. This was not an option. I was a girl and therefore I would grow breasts at some point before I entered high school. Karen did. The pamphlet told me so.

For the next two years I waited for my breasts to grow. I wasn't worried. This was nature. And nature don't lie. I watched for changes in the other girls in my class, not in a creepy way, noticing as their t-shirts expanded. When this happened, these girls seemed to smile more, be more confident--at least that was my impression. Soon, every problem I had was solved in my mind with, "Well, when I get breasts, this won't even matter."

Yet, these promised breasts never came.

Soon eighth grade graduation approached and all of my close friends got their periods. And breasts. But not me. Then, my first period hit, on a class trip to Washington D.C., which was great because everyone found out. But this time, I couldn't console myself with puberty's promise.

Karen lied to me. Puberty, and nature, deserted me. And thus, my pessimism, my skepticism, about people or things coming through for me, emerged. If you can't count on a given, what can you count on?

Now, at 25, I'm rocking the same barely-A's that kinda-sorta-emerged in high school. Of course, I've been consoled by past boyfriends who didn't care about my straight-A status, orating to me the adage that "a handful is all you need." Sure, it helps that my ass is amazing (nope, not even going to apologize for my egotism because it's the truth). But every time I see what one would call a rack, or hooters, or tits, or some other derogatory-sounding name delineating big breasts, mine seem even smaller by comparison.

While mine get to a full-A once a month, so I can sort-of know what's it's like to actually have breasts, I feel obligated to compensate by staying in shape, having a pretty good face, and utilizing my stellar, usually self-deprecating wit. But I always feel like I'm missing something. I feel more consistently like a 12-year-old boy than a 20-something woman.

So, I thought I would take the opportunity to say, thanks, nature, for making me a pessimist. You're a lying bastard.

Bloggers' Block

I haven't written on this thing in what feels like a while. (The last post was written at least three weeks before posting, which feels like blog-cheating to me.) After thinking about why a) I haven't been able to think of anything to write and b) why I have resisted writing/thinking to hard about what to write, I may have figured it out. I started thinking too much about my audience.

When I started this blog, I didn't think too much about who would read it, how it might affect people, etc. In a way, I believed no one was really reading it, even when comments started appearing. There's a degree of distance when you're sitting alone at your kitchen table typing into your stickered-out MacBook, a sense of invisibility, especially since you will likely never actually watch people reading your blog.

Call it performance anxiety, bloggers' block, whatever, I have it, and I have it bad. (There is a more concrete reason, I think, a certain person who may or may not be reading this, who could be the entire reason I am feeling this way. Even giving so little of an explanation on that front makes me self-conscious.)

Might sound a little crazy or backwards-stalkerish, but I have become perhaps a little too aware of who might be reading what I put out online. Here's a confession: sometimes, oh, who am I kidding, almost always, I have a specific audience or purpose in mind when I type in a Facebook status update. In case you haven't noticed, I can be a tiny bit neurotic.

Because I read way too much into things, I believe other people do too. So I decided I would dig up some of my past updates and put what I was actually trying to say with each update beneath (which you should be able to get without an explanation if you are as weird as I am):

1. Natasha Burton is in literateaaaaaaa
I will be in the campus coffee shop all day. And I want you to come visit me.

2. Natasha Burton stares sadly at the cute little skirt that is clearly unwearable today. boo. thanks a lot clouds.
Even though I will be forced to wear pants today, please picture me in the skirt and how good it would have looked.

3. Natasha Burton is predicting a main street block party, fab party pics, and my tongue turning green (the dye in the beer stains, right? cause i'm sorta counting on that...)
I'm basically going to have an amazing St. Patty's Day, and you should either be jealous or just come join me.

4. Natasha Burton carried a watermelon. again.
This is a quote from Dirty Dancing, when Baby bumps into hottie Patrick Swayze and all she says is, "I carried a watermelon." Meagan and I use this phrase to denote moments of humiliation. In this case, I want you to know I am embarrassed, which I hope you find endearing.

5. Natasha Burton wants to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep.
Oh yeah, I lived in New York. And I miss it. I am so cool.

6. Natasha Burton is incognito.
Yesterday, I hid from someone at the gym, quite unsuccessfully. It sucked because I totally wanted to be spotted, by this very person, at the gym sometime but of course it only happened when I forgot a hairtie and looked like crap. I am at the gym right now, looking really cute and wearing a hat, so if you see this and want to walk by, that would be really great because then I would totally get to redeem myself. Thanks.

7. Natasha Burton is ooh, overdue, gimme some room, I'm comin' through.
Using the immortal words of Ms. Christina Aguillera, I will have you know that I am going into a battle-like situation in which I need to be fierce and sassy, and so require the strength of Top 40 pop princess music.

8. Natasha Burton by now should've somehow realized what you gotta do. i don't believe that anybody feels the way i do about you now.
Another song lyric (Wonderwall by Oasis--love it). This means I am about to break-up with my boyfriend.

9. Natasha Burton is omfg
I just did something crazy. And I want everyone to know.

10. Natasha Burton used to be so amused at Napoleon in rags and the language that he used. go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse...
Clearly, I'm a big fan of using lyrics. They work on so many levels. Here I want you to know how cool I am for listening to Bob Dylan. I also want you to know that there is someone I can't "refuse." I. Am. So. Deep.

I don't know what's crazier--that I actually think too hard about this crap or that I am knowingly carrying yet another watermelon by admitting it. Please have a laugh at my expense. But only if you promise to still love me.

What's Complicated?

***I wrote this a couple weeks ago and forgot to post, so it's a little outdated (my life is bit less complicated now, thankfully), but still interesting? I hope?

I've decided to not have a "relationship status" up on my Facebook profile, since ending my epically long relationship, opting to completely erase that little one-line nugget of information from my page completely. This is highly due to the fact that I don't know my relationship status. (Can relationships be quantified anyway? What is a relationship status? Is it like an ETA? Or is it TMI? These questions help distract me from the fact that I have no idea if I am someone's girlfriend or what.)

Anyway. I was thinking, if I were to put up a relationship status, I could put "It's complicated," since there isn't an "I don't know" option. But I don't think those two statements are commensurate. While on the elliptical machine some weeks ago (after I saw the guy I'm engaged in some kind of relationship-y thing with through the window and hid my face, only to have him totally see me anyway and me look and feel like a total spaz), I started thinking about what the complicated option really means.

It's complicated isn't really complicated. It just feels complicated. It's complicated because you're too afraid to ask questions. Or to define whatever it is you have going, because taking that leap feels so permanent and scary. Asking if someone wants to take that leap is more terrifying. Plus, whenever I've seen "it's complicated" up on someone's profile (save my best friend Jenn's because she and her boyfriend have it up as a joke) I take it to mean that you're involved with a guy wants to sleep with you but not actually make you his girlfriend.

Which you think is great at first, because, hey, you've got needs too, until you have no idea what the fuck is going on emotionally and find yourself thinking way too much about him even though sometimes you're not even sure if you really like him that much or if you're just lusting after some ideal version of him because you've built him up so much in your head that he verges on the brink of deity. Then, as soon as you've calmed down and convinced yourself you're okay with the non-definition of your relationship, you see him and he looks really, REALLY attractive (an unshaven face, a tan, and hair on the verge of desperately needing a haircut are my weaknesses) and then you want to jump him in broad daylight.

But who knows? Maybe all relationships, save the boring ones (you know who you are), are complicated. People are complicated. Or maybe all of the relationships I will have will be inherently complicated, because I am. To tell you the truth, I kinda like being complicated. Life is much more interesting without a safety net. But, when I need one, I'll ask for it.

My Younger Self Ponders...

"How can I be a writer when nothing has happened to me yet?"

I asked myself this in my journal September 10, 2006 while in my hovel of a studio in New York. Today, this question means more to me than I could have imagined when I wrote it. At the time, I had just returned to New York from Toronto, where I'd attended a party thrown by the One Organization. I wrote in my journal that I wanted to finish school early and go to Africa to "help out," a vague dream, but one I made in earnest, very much inspired by what I had recently seen. I thought that if I went to Africa, I could do some good and then write about it. Get one of those "life experiences" people always think they need.

This question struck me because it seems almost ridiculous to me now, since I have learned that writing is not entirely about subject matter, but how one handles his or her material. At that point in my writing life (about a month in, officially, if I count the beginning of grad school as a starting point), I had no instruction on craft, or what story really is. What it can be.

Not that I am a wise old writer two years and change (ooh, double meaning) later, but, because I have learned that pretty much everything that happens to us is fodder for writing, I look back on this question almost ruefully. So much tangibly happened to me already when I wrote that question: milestones like my parents' divorce and moving across the country, associations with certain groups and activities like belonging to a sorority, going to an eccentrically-run summer camp, and working at an entertainment magazine.

While I lived in New York, I was too caught up in trying to build some kind of idealized life. I always looking for the next job, the next trip, even the next day, so much so that I think missed much of what was in front of me on a daily basis. So much did happen, even in those seven months in the city, but it took me some time to realize what actually took place.

I also wrote this when I was in New York: I don’t want waste each day by just trying to get through it. We can’t always worry about tomorrow, next week, next year—feverishly churning the gears in our brains to calculate the what-ifs. Envisioning realities that may or may not materialize. It’s too hard to just try to get through each day until the goal is reached, because goals, and dreams, fade, leave, and die. If I always live for tomorrow, yet tomorrow depends on today, how can tomorrow even happen?

It's almost like I have to just live, accept what comes at me, and write down everything that seems important. Then, unearth it later. As I have learned from my professors and classmates at USC, story is not simply what happens to us, but what we think about what happens to us. It is how we relate to that material with the tools of distance, time, and maturity that give us the deeper meaning and understanding. So that we can see, through writing, what it all really means. So we can understand what happened.

Video: Making Love in this Chuck E. Cheese Club

Happy Friday!!!!

This video has been cracking me up all week. Enjoy :)