Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants

by Jill Soloway

  That noise, that BLARGRABLLE or JUGHFLUCLT, it used to come up when I worked on my first TV show, with some of those Harvard Lampoon guys everyone hears are all over sitcom writing staffs. (They are.) This one khaki-clad, striped-shirt guy, with Kerry hair and a golf course tan, would rock on his heels and say, “Ladies love gems. Don’t know why, but it’s something I’ve learned. Ladies just love gems.” Actually, he said “ladies love Jims,” because he was from Texas, and he always chuckled when he said it. But to me, I felt like I was black and he was starting hallway chat with, “Negroes love watermelon!”

  He said it so snortingly gigglingly bemused by the fact that when all was said and added up, yeah, sure we won the right to vote and talk and some of us even get paid to use our brains to write comedy like his Harvard fellows, but when it came down to it, all of us could actually be bought off for a pretty rock.

  His wife had a huge rock. All kinds of women out here have huge rocks. Women at the grocery store and the dry cleaners and a whole bunch of the mothers at my son’s school, the kind of women who love Desperate Housewives and aren’t enraged like I am that the women are all too skinny. I know what these women are thinking when they look at me, they think, “Ha ha ha! My man loves me more than her man loves her. Ha, ha, ha!!!”

  I knew a wife who got something people in the jewelry industry call a “push gift.” These little bracelets and baubles await wives in their husbands’ jacket pockets, ready to be handed over after the childbirth moment. Matthew Broderick gave Sarah Jessica Parker a bejeweled charm bracelet in the hospital after she squished their boy James Wilkie out. Good job, honey! Thanks for ripping your pussy open!

  I never got a push gift. To be fair, I didn’t push, I actually had my son “pulled” through a slice in my belly, so maybe that’s the reason. I guess I ate too much and he got too big and he had to be pulled, I didn’t keep my weight down, so I deserved nothing, not a diamond, nary a bracelet. When I was laid up in the hospital after my C-section, I couldn’t even get anyone to bring me a National Enquirer.

  Kobe gave his wife a four-million-dollar “I’m sorry I was arrested for allegedly raping someone” diamond. Ben gave J.Lo a billionty dollar pink diamond that still didn’t stop her from turning into Runaway Bride a week before the wedding. Pink diamonds instantly made all women with clear—known as white—diamonds ordinary. And now they even have yellow diamonds and brown diamonds, called CHOCOLATE DIAMONDS. Can you tell I’m screaming right now? If you’re reading this to yourself, you should be screaming anything in all caps in your mind, that’s right, scream it loud:

  WHAT IS THE FUCKING DEAL WITH THESE DIAMONDS?

  I ask you, I really do, WHO ARE THESE WOMEN? AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING FOR THESE DIAMONDS?

  Do these women know something I don’t know? Are they different than me because their feet look right in a strappy sandal, their toes don’t look absurd when painted, like mine do, like donut holes with red dots on them? Do they know exactly what to do when someone slides their chair in for them? Me, I scoot, I’ll make a loud scraping noise with my chair, but these women who get diamonds, I bet they glide into the table.

  They chew right and they sip right, which is something I don’t do. I store my sip of coffee in my cheeks before I swallow it, like a chipmunk. This is something I know I do but I can’t stop doing because I don’t notice I’m doing it until after I’ve done it.

  These women probably know how to act on dates and how to act after dates. When I was dating it never occurred to me that I shouldn’t call the guy the day after and tell him I was thinking about him. No one told me that guys get scared when you pursue them. That’s right, no one fucking told me that grown men prefer that grown women behave like bunnies, lifting our little puff tails in the air to expose a millisecond of hole, then scamper off into the forest to incite the chase instinct. NO ONE EVER TOLD ME THAT! I was a go-getter and I figured, why run in the opposite direction when the guy I want is standing right in front of me? Is this why I never got diamonds? I didn’t scamper fast enough, or far enough?

  I’m serious, I don’t get it. I ask you, who ARE these women and WHAT are they doing for these diamonds? Do they withhold sex? Have constant sex? Give great blow jobs? Refuse to give blow jobs? Give blow jobs where at first you pretend to not really want to be giving the blow job but then you start to get into it and next thing you know you’re just slobbering away like some diamond-deserving secret princess whore of blow jobs? Could somebody please tell me WHAT ARE THESE WOMEN DOING FOR THESE DIAMONDS?

  Are they mean? Are they nice? Do they scream? Do they think of themselves as a special prize that deserves special gems? What about special jims? Are their pussies cleaner than mine? Prettier than mine? Waxed? Unwaxed? Waxed with floor wax? Or do they have giant stanky messy hairy retro bushes that don’t give a shit at all, bushes that say FUCK YOU, BROTHER, YOU’RE GOING TO STICK YOUR FACE IN THIS MESS AND YOU’RE GOING TO GIVE ME DIAMONDS! WHAT IS THE FUCKING DEAL WITH THESE DIAMONDS?

  Are they gifts of light for women who agree to be left in the dark? You’ve been faithful to me for three more years, here’s another diamond. You’ve been raising my children for seven years, your market value has fallen, here’s some more diamonds to even it out. Your face is falling because you’ve been yelling at our children, so you have that line between your eyebrows and sure you’ll get money in the settlement but clearly, no one will ever want you again, so Jesus, I hope this rock buys me a few more months of peace in this house, here’s another diamond. There’s a hole in your soul because you gave up everything for me, is this rock big enough for that hole?

  What the fuck are these women doing for these diamonds?

  Maybe I’m mad at diamonds because they’re a prize for something I’m not good at. I guarantee you if women got diamonds for manic ranting or talking dirty or loud gum smacking, I wouldn’t have a problem with diamonds. Fuck the enslaved South African elves or armless children who have to climb down the dirty mines, fuck fashion fascism, de Beers and politics, maybe what bugs me about diamonds is that I’m just not good at getting them.

  Maybe… maybe you get diamonds for not being angry. Some people say, “Hey, Jill. What’s with all the anger?”

  It’s true, I do, I have rage, I have all kinds of rage about all kinds of things, not just about how no one cares about feminism anymore rage and no one except me wanted to talk about it when Andrea Dworkin died, but in addition, a what the fuck rage. This rage is worse in the morning coffee-fueled serotonin rush, where I can be driving to work and on the radio hear 2000 Factory Cash Back on Sienna and I get mad. For no reason. Okay, well, there’s clearly a reason there—it should be 2000 Factory Cash Back on a Sienna or on the Sienna but they just say ON SIENNA like we’re all just supposed to intuit that car names don’t need articles before them anymore.

  And I can’t be the only one in this entire universe who became irate upon learning that creamery is not an adjective after all, that it’s actually a noun, in fact, a place. Growing up, I had taken all these commercials at face value, believing that rich, creamery butter meant rich, extra-creamy butter—butter that’s so creamy that it’s actually creamery. But then one day I find out it means butter from a creamery, and that, moreover, a creamery is a place where dairy products are made, and I’m not supposed to be angry about all of these years of misleading advertising? I’m not supposed to garner support from everyone I meet on that fateful day of that horrible news, even if it happens to be a first date? Is this why I never got diamonds? Because I never learned how to keep my big, fucking rich, creamery mouth shut?

  Sometimes merely the word “Toyotathon” can enrage me.

  Or a billboard for the “right-hand ring.” This is a new one cooked up by our good friends the diamond people. It says, “The left hand rocks the cradle. The right hand rocks the world.” Now, not only am I supposed to feel like shit because my man hasn’t spent $50,000 on a ring for me, but also because I’m not willing to spend it on myself? And what abo
ut women like me? I like rocking the cradle and the world. Does that mean I need two? I happen to think two would look weird, too symmetrical, like diamond-hand-nipples.

  After a few days, I went to find Monica to give her the ring back.

  “I thought you said you wanted it for a week,” she said.

  “I did,” I said. “But this thing is really heavy.”

  I took it off and weighed it in the palm of my hand, then handed it to her. Monica weighed it too.

  “I don’t know how women wear these things every day,” I said. “I just don’t.”

  When I went home that night, Dink said, “Hey, what happened to that ring I gave you?”

  “I gave it back,” I told him.

  “Do you want another one?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Let me think about it.”

  13

  Lesbo Island

  Like all relationships, Dink and I came to that place. That moment, when the man you decided was The One does something, a year in or two years in, just as the pheromones are starting to fade. He will toss your child too high in the air while playing in the park or he will tell you he stopped with his friends at Hooters or, in my case with Dink, bring home Hamburger Helper and threaten to make it.

  That day will come, and as surely as you felt, He’s The One, you will feel, He’s Not The One. According to Kabbalah, this is the day your relationship starts. This is the day you become an adult, swallow your pride, and wait it out or work it through.

  Or not. If you’re like me, you won’t swallow your pride. Your rage will start to grow, and you will do what I do—call up Neille and bitch. I start by saying, “Men are obsolete, aren’t they? And they don’t even know it! None of them are actually supporting us; we’re all supporting ourselves these days. The Arrowhead water guy brings my water bottle all the way in to my kitchen if I ask him, and I don’t have to let him watch football games in the living room all weekend long. And why do men have to answer everything with an answer, even if it’s not a question? Or take positions and defend them even when the subject is brunch or which Farmer’s Market to try? And why do they look at so much Internet porn?”

  What comes next is the invariable plan to start my own society. I go online and look for land in Northern California, and figure out exactly how I’m going to get the fuck out. I make Neille promise to come with me. I make a list of all the women with whom I’ve discussed this over the years. We tell each other the story of our land particularly during fights with our men, to comfort, using the idea like a suckle toy.

  There are a lot of women on that list. First there are all the single moms I know who really could use a village and have promised me they would be on the next plane if I ever do it. Then there are the married women—I know at least ten of them—whose husbands provide financial support in exchange for never being home, being grumpy when they are home, then playing golf on the weekend. They also expect oral sex and tell their haggard, tired wives that a blow job a month is not too much to ask for. But this is where they’re wrong. On Lesbo Island, no one has to give any blow jobs. Blow jobs are only given when they’re the woman’s idea.

  That’s right, it is now obvious to you that my entire book, as well as my life, has been leading up to this: a call for an unarmed yet mighty revolution, secession into an all-female state, with a big ol’ newfounded land, sort of a gigantic honeycomb hideout, ruled by me, yes me, until the patriarchy is toppled and a global matriarchy run by me, yes me, is installed. It’s freaky, it doesn’t matter if I start out writing about firemen or Tostitos or poodles, everything seems to drift back, like a shopping cart with a broken wheel, to the idea that the only solution to everything wrong with everything is to start a woman-ruled planet, and to begin by starting an all-woman land.

  After I get the first couple of girls there, I probably won’t tell the rest of the converts that it’s forever. This could scare a few women off, women who are probably dominated by their ingrained love of the patriarchy or Blended drinks from Coffee Bean and supermarket sushi. These are the women I would have to trick. To start, I’d just call it “my land,” not “our land.” I’d also lie and say, “Yes, both of you are welcome. When can you guys come up?”

  In fact, to be safe, I wouldn’t even call it Lesbo Island, or Wombtown, I’d call it something lovely and lite, like Feather Crest, so people wouldn’t have any idea what I was up to. They’d turn up for the nature walks or to sample my slow-roasted meats, perhaps find their muse walking by the blackberry bushes near the pond. But once there, spending their long mornings, magical afternoons, and oh-so-starry nights under my quiet, unspoken rule, they’d start to realize: Now this is life. This is how we should all be living. Long weekends would turn into just one more day, until they’d been there a week, then a month.

  Frustrated, bored husbands would have long since returned to the cities, like New Jersey husbands doing the shore only on the weekends while the wives kibbitz and sun the rest of the week without them. Back in the city, the husbands would be free to watch football, go to tit bars, and talk about their boring-ass stocks and their boring-ass boring-ass Consumer Reports.

  Our first Feather Crest Village would be a mock-up for the rest of the lands that other women would make after ours goes really, really well. On about forty acres, we would situate eight or so small cabins, all hidden by enough woodsy goodness that no one could see into your house from their house. This way, any women who like naked stretching can feel free to enjoy naked stretching. I do not like naked stretching, and, as such, nudity will not be encouraged in other parts of Feather Crest. No one should expect to turn up and strut around the pool with their bush on display. That’s for inside your cabin.

  Every cabin will have its own wood-burning fireplace and kitchen. Women are encouraged to purchase their own groceries and eat in their own homes as often as they wish. In the center of the land, however, would be the (ROUND!) center house—make that Centre Haus—with a giant industrial kitchen, a gathering room (ROUND!) with a fireplace, a gigantic (ROUND!) plasma TV, plus the shed where you keep your blow-up rafts when you don’t feel like deflating them for the fall.

  At Feather Crest, we’d be the village some say it takes: I could be tap tap tapping on my computer while Lisa hangs out in the vegetable garden with everyone’s kids pointing out the difference between arugula and frisee. Later that day, Neille would gather the kids for finger painting while Lisa and I took the station wagon into town for supplies. Every few months, the men would come up for a few days, but as time passed, everyone’s relationships would be ruined and instead of visits we’d get checks. If the checks weren’t enough, we’d write books or sit in a circle and craft hammocks to sell on the Internet.

  It wouldn’t have to be hammocks, it could be beaded bracelets or seashell paintings, anything where we sit in a circle and laugh, babies popping on and off of breasts, while through the screened-in porch, we’d watch the older children delight in faerie games. All of that stuff sounds much better than the urban, overscheduled playdate land I live in right now. Right now I only see my women friends every couple months, when we plan a Girls’ Night or Ladies Sushi Night. That’s right, we actually have to name it to make it happen.

  On the land, nothing would be planned. YOU ONLY COME TO THE CENTRE HAUS IF YOU WANT TO. No planned meals, no chore wheels, no meetings, no yoga. If you’re at your lil’ cabin and you desire some company, you can walk to the Centre Haus to see what’s doing, but by no means can you write up a notice saying “Wednesday is Deb’s Vegetarian Chili Nite at the Centre!”

  As I see it, any sort of planned group gathering is a recipe for disaster. Nearly all of my daily problems here in the real world are rooted in disdain for plans already made. If I could remove commitments from my life, my mood would improve by at least 13 percent. All my friends seem to feel that way. Most complaints start with “I told Alicia I would be at her birthday gathering but I fucking got my period and I’d give anything not to g
o.” It’s the same for my kid. Saturday mornings start with, “Do I really have to go to Jesse’s birthday party? Can’t we just stay home and watch all those Wife Swaps that Tivo is about to erase?”

  At Lesbo Island, there are no planned gatherings, only spontaneous ones, so obviously, that rules out E-vites, which I’ve been trying to find a way to do away with for a long, long time. All of the food would be constantly growing, fresh in the Gardenne outside of the Centre, so if there was a sudden rush of people needing to have, say, an unplanned eighties dance party, there’d be plenty of red chard outside that could be gathered into a basket and boiled into sustenance.

  Also at Lesbo Island, as I’ve implied, there’d be no men as permanent residents, with a few exceptions: anyone’s son who was raised there can stay full time until he’s eighteen; gay men can visit for up to three weeks a year, though not continuous nor contiguous. Tradesmen from the local town could visit for our ever-lessening sexual needs. Although I’ve outlawed chore wheels, if the pool of contractors gets shallow, we might need some manner of Cock Wheel on the fridge so no one steps on anyone else’s conquests. Ex-husbands—but only those bringing checks—can stay for a long weekend (Thursday thru Sunday or Saturday thru Monday but NEVER Thursday thru Monday); plus any men I say because I’m Queen.

  Speaking of which, this is the number one rule on Lesbo Island, and hopefully, in the rest of the world once I’m Queen:

  No killing.

  This is something men don’t understand. They think one has to be able to kill to let eternity know man is here to stay and means it. Super Goddess, the entity to whom we’ll pray out at Lesbo Island, knows that the taking of a life is a job for nature only, not man. (Please note that when I write of a respect for life I do not wish to align with pro-lifers or Terry Schaivo supporters.) This idea that life is sacred seems really obvious to me, as obvious as lifting the toilet seat if you’re going to hover, but there are millions and millions of men in uniform and in suits who still don’t have this one figured out.