Hilarity in Shoes

Q: Why did you choose “Hilarity in Shoes” as the name for your blog?

I’m something of a word nerd, and I love puns and wordplay.  I came up with the blog name long before I started the blog.  I thought it would be memorable and funny.  I think of myself as funny, too, but the blog is definitely not always funny because some things about being a single 35-year-old are, well, not funny.  I really like my tagline too: “Dating, Mating, Relating, Medicating.”  Sums it up nicely.

Q: You’re a fantastic writer. What prompted you to start chronicling your personal stories publicly?

I’ve always thought of myself as a writer (and thank you for saying I’m a good one).  I’m a huge reader of books and essays and magazines and blogs, and I frame my thoughts about everything in terms of dialogue and narrative arc. I had a blog years ago that I loved writing, but as more and more people I know in real life started reading it, I began to feel very constrained as to what I could write about, especially as it pertained to love and sex and relationships and what I wanted in my secret heart. I started Hilarity in Shoes in the midst of a really devastating break-up (which has turned out to be but one episode in a long relationship.)  I wanted a space where I could worry and fret and work out what I REALLY wanted for myself in terms of love without draining my friends’ reserves of empathy.  The blog has definitely been that, and more, though I am having that same old problem of wanting everyone in the world to read it and wanting to preserve my anonymity.

Q: You list “10 things to know about you” on your blog including that you have lived in DC since 1993. What about DC makes love and/or hate the city?

What I love about DC is that it’s urban but manageable, in terms of size and bustle, and that it’s really clean and beautiful (I love you, Philly and New York, but damn, you are really dirty.)  DC is also bursting with very smart people; the kind of random conversations you can strike up here at a bar or coffee shop are pretty amazing.  I have a borderline fetish for intelligence--ooh baby, let me fondle your lab coat--so the nerd vibe really works for me.  REALLY works. (Sadly, the khaki Dockers vibe really doesn’t.  I’m complex like that.) What I don’t love about the city is its transient nature--people come here to get a leg up, or to make connections, but rarely with an eye toward settling down and making a life, which is definitely what I want.  And on a totally superficial note, as a girl who reached her adult height of 5’10 at age 12, the men in DC really do tend to be shorter.

Q: What is it about “40+ year old spinster ladies with cats who put a brave face on things and throw a lot of their energy into being a good aunt” that makes you cringe?

I’ve seen friends of mine make that transition, from trying and trying to find love and have a family to Making The Best of Things--and the prospect  just makes my throat close with panic. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your nieces and nephews and pets, and appreciating your life for what you do have instead of ruing what you don’t, but I am certain of what I want: a good man who loves me and a couple of precocious kids, and family traditions, and someone to fight with and make up with and have lots of sex with long-term.  It doesn’t feel very riot grrrrl to say that, but it’s true.  I spent a lot of time pretending that I would be just fine whether I got it or not, but I will be 36 in April and if there ever was a time to officially freak out about my future, this is it.

Q: Many singles would give up their dream job in exchange for the perfect match. Would you or would you not and why?

One thing I have realized with absolute clarity in my mid-30s is that I don’t really care about My Career.  I have a good job, and I do it well, and there is a lot about it that I enjoy.  I’ve worked since I was 12, and I expect that I always will work, but I would give up any career opportunity without a second thought for a solid shot at love.

Q: In one of your posts, you urge your readers to look for reasons to love people. Did you stumble upon the key to keeping an open heart?

I wish I could say yes, and then you could ask me what it was, and I could tell you, and an editor would read my answer and offer me a book deal, and I would write a funny and wistful and poignant memoir about How I Learned to Open Myself Up to Love, and then I could get really good highlights and go on talk shows to talk about my book, and I would be self-effacing yet wise, and people would stop me at Starbucks and say that they think I am a good writer and that they want to be my friend and/or marry me. Alas, all I can say is that I wish desperately that I had started thinking and talking about love in my 20s so I was that much further along now.  I’ve always been terrified to try things that might lead to failure, and relationships fell into that category for a long time because they feel risky as hell.  The one thing I have learned, and that I tell everyone, is that you’d better not waste time languidly waiting for Love to trip and fall into your lap--this is the one life we have, and if love is important to you, you’d better be out there looking for it.  The risk of losing out is just too high if you don’t.

Q: What are your thoughts about loving yourself and your life first, regardless of age or relationship status?

Loving yourself is so easy to talk about and so hard to do.  For me, it’s been tremendously helpful to write about what I fear and what I want; it’s shown me that a lot of other people share my fears and worries.  Once, I confessed to a group of women how long my longest sexual dry spell had been.  It was a number of years that I found so painful and shameful that I could barely say it to myself.  But when I said it to them, many had gone through similar periods, and some of those people certainly seemed lovable and desirable, so I started thinking maybe, just maybe, there was nothing wrong with them simply because they were unlucky in love and in booty.  Therefore, maybe there was nothing wrong with me either, or at least nothing catastrophically and unforgivably wrong.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that I do believe everyone should love themselves regardless of age or relationship status, but that I also believe that it is really, really hard to do for some of us, and that it’s okay to admit that.  Knowing this has made me a better friend and lover; if I love someone, I never let them doubt it for one second, because I know what it’s like to deal with that doubt when you’re already struggling to keep your chin up.

Q: Could have, should have or would have. If you could turn back the clock, what would you do differently and why?

I would have started dating with purpose in my mid-20s, when I had a much cuter ass and a lot more time to leisurely seek out Mr. Right.  I thought I had all the time in the world for the pieces of my life to fall into place, and I was wrong.

Q: Care to share anything else with our readers?

I just want you all to silently thank me for not ever mentioning in the course of this interview the fact that female fertility begins to decline precipitously at age 27 (on average) and that we’ve all been sold a bill of goods about our ability to blithely procreate whenever we want to because our mother’s best friend’s aunt’s neighbor got pregnant on accident at 44 and that baby is so cute. 

I also want to take this opportunity to apologize to my real-life friends for mentioning that their eggs are dying RIGHT NOW, and for the fertility chart I emailed all to of my girlfriends that one time.  That was wrong.

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