Wicked and Wise Girls

Bella and I were on a walk yesterday talking about how too many people have podcasts and substacks… then… we thought… could we be those people? If you can't beat them, join them.

what we’re biting

grey: I was crammed into a U-Haul with 17 strangers last night, after parading blindfolded through campus. It was tap night at Yale—the seniors in “secret” societies choose a new group of juniors. And in the U-Haul I realized, I haven’t been to a party without my close friends in a long time. I’m biting into that feeling that ‘the world is big again,’ the kind you get after meeting cool people, who you didn’t know existed. The U-Haul dropped us at an AirBnb with a number of weird rock formations throughout the house, where we got to know each other (~hazed) for twelve more hours, and performed a few special rituals.

texts before the storm

bella: I’m feeling exhausted by talking about society tap, but it really has dominated most of the Yale zeitgeist this week, so it’d be wrong to not say it’s what I’m biting. I, unfortunately, was not whisked away in a U-Haul, but instead was put on the Metro-North with a group of (mostly) strangers to an undisclosed location (Westport). I have a habit of performing, particularly around new people, and these (mostly) strangers were no exception. I made sure to fill every lull in conversation with a clever quip, an appropriately targeted roast, an observation about how ridiculous our union was in the first place. I manufactured closeness by giving us all something to laugh about, a joke for us to be “in” on together. It’s a formula I use to get people to like me.

I wonder if I’m losing something by not letting the silence be, if I’m turning myself into a caricature rather than a person. I’m biting on the silence I guess, or lack thereof, the silence I have now since digested? I don’t know. I think I’m chewing rather than biting.

pics from westport

what bit us

grey: Bella brought us home with her to New Jersey for Passover. The Seder was feminist this year, and it included four types of girls: Wise, Wicked, Simple, and the One Who Does Not Know How to Ask. The Wise daughter is known for asking questions and investigating their faith, the Wicked daughter challenges the status quo, the Simple daughter accepts tradition and trusts their elders, and the One Who Does Not Know How to Ask is passive and afraid to engage with the meaning of Passover. I read the lines of Wicked girl and Bella read the Wise girl. Then, the table agreed, “Wow, everyone really matched their parts.” That definitely bit me. But what really is so wicked about the Wicked girl?

bella and her dog pierre

bella: I woke up last Friday with a stubborn pain radiating throughout my left oblique. I was convinced I had broken my rib the night before and somehow not remembered, which would be competing in a close race for the stupidest self-inflicted injury I have sustained against the time I broke my foot on the day before classes started because I ran across Elm street in flip-flops. The pain was unlike anything I have ever experienced before: walking shot pins into my back, breathing was unbearable, and worst of all—laughing, LAUGHING was absolutely hellish.