First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

Does Marriage Make You Fat?

I’m one of the lucky ones. I have thin genes. I assume it’s the genes, because my immediate family is thin, too. I’ve leafed through self-help books about eating like a skinny person, and that’s how I eat. I’m not worried that I won’t get enough, so I partake of what I want, and never feel deprived. Don’t hate me. There are plenty of things not as easy. Like sleep. I’m the worst sleeper. I envy friends who slip into bed and crash. That’s life. You win some, you lose some.

I read about a survey published in the July issue of Obesity that within a few years of tying the knot, people (especially women) are twice as likely to become obese as those who are just dating. I wonder if the study had a control group of single people who aren’t dating. Maybe that’s why I’m skinny. All those years on my own.

A Single Woman and a Few Close Friends

June 28, 2009 marked the 40^th anniversary of “Stonewall,” a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village which sparked days of riots and protests, and the start of the gay rights movement.

I mention it here, amid my heterosexual rants about unmarried life, because of how much I’ve been shaped and embraced by the lesbian/gay community, and how fortunate I am for it. William, the first gay person I had the pleasure to meet, or at least the first who acknowledged it out loud to me, turned into my most cherished friend.

Why is there such a bond?

I wouldn’t dare to compare my personal ups and downs as a single, straight woman, with those who have experienced brutal discrimination because of sexual preference. But it’s been a relief to share the loving company of others considered outside the cultural norm, because of a journey without spouses and children.

Now that gays are marrying and having families, perhaps the camaraderie will change. But I doubt it. I’m sure we’re linked for life.

(Photo: From a 1970’s Gay Liberation Front Poster)

How to Marry a Prince (of the theater, that is)

This must be the week for finding quotes by extraordinary women, with mothers who had pointed advice about what they needed to do (and not do) to find a husband. My mother was less direct, though no less urgent on the subject.

Kitty Carlisle Hart was a singer, actress and tireless arts advocate who died in 2007 at 96. Here is an excerpt from the Times obituary by Marilyn Berger.

As a young girl she was taken around the capitals of Europe by her mother, whose ambition was to establish her daughter in a “brilliant” marriage, preferably to a prince. There were piano lessons, voice lessons and a grounding in the dramatic arts.

When a royal husband did not materialize, Miss Carlisle recalled, her mother would tell her, “You’re not the prettiest girl I ever saw, and you’re not the best singer I ever heard, and you’re certainly not the best actress I ever hoped to see, but if we put them all together, we’ll find the husband we’re looking for on the stage.”

That indeed they did. Carlisle was married to the noted playwright and director, Moss Hart.

Madam Minister of Trade

Thanks to my friend, Matty, for pointing me to an interview with Mari Elka Pangestu, the Minister of Trade for Indonesia:

I grew up in a very traditional family. My mother was always telling me, “Don’t be so smart, don’t show that you’re smart or you’ll never get married, you’ll never get a boyfriend…” I wanted very badly to do well in school. I wanted to do better than the boys, I had a very competitive spirit, but my mother was always telling me the opposite. My mother also didn’t want me to do a Ph.D. She said, “For sure you’ll never get married if you get a Ph.D. in economics.”

So I had a very, very insightful father who from the age of 10 he said to me, “You have to do well in school, because you have to be financially independent, no matter what. Even if you get married, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be financially secure. Your husband can die, you can get divorced.”

Mari Elka Pangestu, now married with two children, became the first woman in Indonesia to earn a Ph.D in economics.

Are Single Women in Bed With Their Pets?

Singles were more likely to say a pet was a full member of the family than married people — 66 percent of single women versus 46 percent of married women, for example. And men were less likely to call their pet a full member of the household. — AP/Petside Poll, June 23, 2009

Most nights, I sleep with my cat (Lily), my dog (Rose) or both. According to an AP/Petside poll just released, I’m apparently keeping company with about a third of American pet owners. More than 50% of those surveyed have given their dogs human-like names, but since Rose and Lily  are flowers, I’m not sure exactly where I fit in. I’ve never dressed my animals in outfits, as some respondents have done (that Pug on the right is NOT my dog), but once I tried to put a strand of costume pearls over my bijoodle’s head, and she ripped it off within a minute. I have lots of photos of R & L on my iPhone (though I didn’t make either of them my wallpaper, because really how could you choose). I don’t feed my animals human food as do 43% of pet owners, except for the occasional organic free-range turkey I mix into Rose’s bowl.

I don’t think of Rose and Lily as family members. I don’t sign greeting cards with their names, they are not in holiday announcements. I don’t take them on vacations. (Am I cruel?) However, I do expect them to send me Mother’s Day cards. After all, I’m only human.

The Talented (and almost forgotten) Judith Leyster

The 17th century Dutch painter, Judith Leyster, is not a household name. An exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., on the occasion of her 400th birthday, is one measure to remedy that.

Judith Leyster lived and worked in Haarlem, and was renowned in her day. In 1633, she was granted membership to the prestigious painters’ Guild, one of only two women admitted in the whole of the 17th century. Yet since her death in 1660, she had mostly been forgotten. In the 1970’s as a graduate student, Frima Fox Hofrichter, now Professor of Art and Design at Pratt University, rediscovered Leyster, and it is owing to her considerable scholarship and detective work, that we know as much as we do today.

Much of Leyster’s work was originally attributed to the other masters of her time, especially Frans Hal. She married a painter, Jan Miense Molenaer, who was more prolific and more documented, though hardly as talented. As with so many accomplished women throughout history (before nannies, day care and stay-at-home Dads), Leyster’s career diminished after marriage and motherhood. Judith Leyster, 1609-1660, runs through November 29, 2009.

Painting: Self Portrait, 1630

How to Survive a Sex Drought

1) Remember you’re beautiful.
Don’t equate lack of sexual activity with lack of desirability.

2) Enhance your wardrobe.
Put on clothes that make you feel like you’ve just had sex. Wear a flouncy skirt. Undo your top button. Moisturize. We know the benefits of lacy lingerie (which I find hard to summon up, during a dry spell). So, in my medicine cabinet, I keep a styling product called bedroom hair.

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Making the Case for Romance

It’s Sunday evening and I’m taking a short cut, so I can get back to relaxing. What I mean by short cut is, earlier today I read a few reviews of a new book, A Vindication of Love by Cristina Nehring, and I’m hastily distilling these reviews into a sound bite, which is kind of like playing telephone, or presenting hearsay in a courtroom, having not digested the book myself. Disclaimer out of the way.

Nehring puts forth a theory that as a culture, we are so goal-oriented towards the steadiness of marriage, that we have forsaken passionate love. As a single woman who has propelled herself across continents and propriety for a sensual embrace, I am happy to report, that is not the case with me.

I Want to Be a Brinkley Girl

In 1916, the celebrated illustrator Nell Brinkley, known as the “Queen of Comics” created the cartoon, The Three Graces, with the caption: Any man who loves and reveres his mother and his country should idolize, if he worship at all, the three graces, Suffrage, Preparedness and Americanism.”

Brinkley didn’t start out as overtly political. Her first cartoons were frilly and romantic. But she became famous for creating “The Brinkley Girls,” a sophisticated series capturing the modern American working woman with a combination of glamour, spunk, feminine allure and curly hair (think Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum 2). For over thirty years, Nell Brinkley’s artwork appeared in the New York Evening Standard, a Hearst publication. At the height of her fame, Bloomingdales, the iconic New York department store, named a day after Brinkley, poems and songs were written about the characters she created, girls saved their money to buy her illustrations, and women flocked for hair curlers emblazoned with her name.

You can find out more in The Brinkley Girls: the Best of Nell Brinkley’s Cartoons From 1913-1940, a new book by cartoonist Trina Robbins.

Painting A Room When You’re Single 2.0

My bathroom is in the process of being repainted, because part of the shower wall is erupting. After my last trauma of too many trips to the paint store, feeling completely inept, I chose the color quickly and unemotionally. We’re half way to completion (and I use “we’re” lightly, because I don’t have much to do with it, other than forking up the cash) and this time around, I have no experience of marital self pity. What progress!