The moment of her undoing has finally come.
It has been a slow, steady, beautifully imperceptible unraveling. If you have been following along, you would not have noticed, the way you barely notice the transformation of your friends and family because the subtle changes are shrouded in the chaos of The Everyday; if you were dropped into the thick of it, you would not have noticed, because you have no reality other than that into which you stumbled. But if you and I shared two sinful days wrapped up in nothing but learning, understanding, consuming each other, then parted for the two and a half years that I’ve been journaling my experiences and emotions, only to be re-acquainted today, you would know.
I have come undone.
And this undoing, the way many a tragic femotional undoing does, reduced me to a weekend night, in front of the TV, crumbled into a weeping, shaking heap in the middle of my living room floor littered with tissues, surrounded on the three sides by...miniature devil’s food cupcakes.
I mean come on. Really? No, really? Does it get any more textbook Spanish language soap oprah during that time of the month right before the daytime Emmys than that? The only thing missing was an empty pint of Ben & Jerry's overturned on the carpet, sending chocolate and vanilla rivulets into an irrecoverable mess that would be deducted from my deposit.
I don't like Ben & Jerry's.
It was Saturday night. It was an evening like many evenings of my recent past. I ignored what was going on in my head and heart. I ignored the responsibilites of my friends and family. At the appointed hour, calculated backwards from the forward ETA – accounting for the 40 minute drive-time that's really 10 minute GoogleMaps time, 10 minute elevator time, forgetting some essential evening something in my apartment at least four 2 minute times for which I have to go back up the elevator to get it, four 10 minute permutations of basically the same outfit but different to me because every black dress has its own personality, 20 minutes in front of the mirror with an armory courtesy of Sephora, 10 minutes of blow out time – at the appointed hour, I jumped into the shower and started the routine. It takes me no less than two-and-a-half hours to "get gorgeous."
Fully, fabulously dressed, glamorously accessorized from head to toe, face cemented with layers of makeup, standing in the middle of an apartment that looked like a tornado had blown through and emptied the entire contents of my closet, bathroom, and shoe shelving onto every square inch of my apartment floor, about to step out into a night that, as always, held many promises that are never kept, I caught a glimpse of myself in the enormous mirror just inside my front door, and stopped dead in my stilettoed tracks.
Who is that exquisite beast of a beauty?!?!
Ok, that is so not what I thought to myself, but it seemed so right, didn't it?
I was frozen. I couldn’t do it.
I don’t even know what “it” was that I couldn’t do. Driving somewhere? Meeting someone? Just the act of going out in general? I couldn’t be the person I was trying so very hard to be in the mirror. I turned around, heaved a sigh that could have won me an award, peeled off every preposterous layer that I had superficially applied in the last few hours, slipped into my sweats, then started that for which I should have blown off My Saturday Night.
Out of some habit that I don’t have, I put on a DVD as white noise during my flurry in the kitchen, baking cupcakes for Sunday brunch the next day. I don’t watch movies, but he gave me The Devil Wears Prada.
And if you thought that throwing two-and-a-half hours of effort into the hamper and a drugstore makeup remover towelette was coming undone, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Devil Wears Prada made me cry.
And that, my friends, is how I know I have come undone. I never cry. Nev. Er. I never watch movies. Nev. Er. And in the course of one late Spring evening, I was reduced to doing both in the most ridiculously weepy, emotional melodrama you've never seen: releasing a flood of tiny briny tears that didn't cause a messcara over a movie that I would never watch on any other sane occasion because 1) it's a movie, 2) it's based on a book, and 3) who the fuck cries over The Devil Wears Prada?!?!
I do. If you're allergic to cheesy lameness and people analyzing their own lives based on fiction, please browse the Delicious Archives for something more intelligent. There's intelligence in there somewhere. You just have to look carefully. Thanks!
Normal people don't cry while watching the Devils Wears Prada. Okay, maaaaybe, their eyes well up halfway when Andi misses Vince's birthday because it recalls some memory frm their own lives (I know it's not "Vince," but Adrian Grenier will always and ever be Entourage to me). Maybe, just maybe, the fashionistas will shed a waterproof mascara'd tear when Andi gives up all those gorgeous clothes from the Paris shows at the end.
Maybe. But they certainly don't cry throughout the whole damned movie like I did. They don't cry because the two main characters are reflections of themselves. That is me on that tiny screen in my living room - Andi chasing her dream mistakenly down a runway, working so hard that she could only show up with a tiny storebought cupcake for her boyfriend's birthday. That would be me on that little screen - Miranda running an empire filled with people, but totally alone. They don't find themselves hating themselves for what they've been, or what they haven't been, or what they're about to become. I sat there, horrified at the scenario that I had been living. What had I become? I had been too busy blogging like the goddamned blogging demon that I am
ref="https://www.thedeliciouslife.com/2007/03/fuddruckers-my-gamer-days-peaked-in.html">all over the goddamned blogsphere, too stressed out while working my little tail off, too wrapped up in my "agenda," that I had forgotten who I was and what I really want to be.
I tried to console myself, telling myself that I had caught myself the nick of time, redemption by staying home and baking cupcakes, but I realized it was too little, too late. I had been reduced to baking faking cupcakes out of a box.
Everything for which I had been working myself into an insane frenzy was just my own imaginary empire in which I would be my own imaginary Miranda. I was going to be wealthy, famous, powerful.
But I would be miserable. And alone. And fooling myself into thinking that sickeningly saccharin sugar sandy frosting out of a can covering up a bland, substance-less cupcake out of a box was pretty - "pretty" purchased from the store and slathered on like a $250 La Prairie caviar cream to hide the flaws that I can't even identify because I'm too busy maintaining this oddly opaque facade that has finally...
...come undone.
Thank God for sequels.
** a year ago today, AOC was a hat trick **
** two years ago today, we sent the bar flies buzzing **
tags :: food : and drink : baking : cooking : cupcakes : reviews : los angeles
Anonymous says
Oh Paris, it's only 38 more days. Pull yourself together. Be strong.
sarah says
anonymous: are you calling me a skinny, spoiled, melodramatic b*tch?!?!
well. i have to say, i'm...well, quite flattered. *kisskiss!*
sarah says
anonymous: are you calling me a skinny, spoiled, melodramatic b*tch?!?!
well. i have to say, i'm...well, quite flattered. *kisskiss!*
U says
Well, hopefully you can get Johnny Depp to sign up for the sequel.
Jerrold says
Admitting you have a problem is the first step Sarah. Good luck and Godspeed.
Jerrold says
Admitting you have a problem is the first step Sarah. Good luck and Godspeed.
Anonymous says
I'm confused. Where are your posts going? I thought you were updating daily but then... I see that the second post is from April? What happened to the fun fashion week post?
sarah says
u: johnny depp? i don't know. what about tobey maguire?
jerrold: but what if i've been admitting that i have a problem, for about 8 months?
anonymous #2: scroll down, or go to the april 2007 archive from the dropdown box in the side bar :)
condiment says
Pull yourself together, Sarah! Great cupcakes take what - 45 minutes? Including the time to frost them with ganache? Sprinkles is evil, my young friend, pure evil.
Jerrold says
Sometimes it takes a while for things to sink in or you could just be stubborn like some other Asian women I know (like my mom). Either way good luck I got my fingers crossed for ya.
JF says
It looks like you got hit with the same cupcake epidemic that's hit the internet and Los Angeles. The cupcake storm...will eventually pass.
JF says
It looks like you got hit with the same cupcake epidemic that's hit the internet and Los Angeles. The cupcake storm...will eventually pass.
sarah says
condiment: i know. but i didn't have any cake flour, and as horrible as it is, cake mix and frosting is an emergency staple in my pantry. for these kinds of emergencies. and honey, i am not, never have been, a fan of sprinkles. not a fan at all.
cupcakes for crystal meth
three, yes three, cupcakes
hype theory
jerrold: stubborn? me? NEVER!
jf: i think i am partially allergic to the cuteness of cupcakes.