amanda udoff
baltimore, md
A friend had recently told me that he thought I was the boss in my marriage. Did I really want to negotiate my marriage anew and risk losing that power? From the bathroom, Dan asked, “Do you really think this project is a good idea?”
I realized that my favorite books about marriage — Calvin Trillin’s “About Alice” and Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking” — included one spouse who was dead.
“But whatever I don’t like about myself, it doesn’t matter, because I am a woman and that is the first thing I love about myself. I love the way my body can move because I am a woman; the way I can writhe around and shift parts of myself and position myself so that you are very aware of our differences. I have hips that I sway dangerously as you walk up the stairs behind me, legs that I extend for miles over your lap, an ass that I stick out and trip you with as you walk by.”
Hell hath no fury and all that…
