Dear Claire,

For crying out loud, I forgot how salty you were. You think I didn’t see you making your way through the park, clearly on your way to a boozy meal with what will probably be very little nutritional consideration? Notice I said “meal”, because brunch is in between breakfast and lunch. You can’t call it a boozy brunch when it’s past lunchtime. That’s just science. Where you’re headed can either be called a sad, late lunch, or a very ambitious pregame. Anyway, of course I saw you, you’re kind of hard to miss. With the way-too-long-to-be-dyed-so-blond hair and the overly loud and clearly practiced laugh and the baby alpaca sweaters that you can’t stop telling people are made from actual baby alpaca. Bish, give that shit up. No one cares if its baby alpaca, teenage alpaca, or elderly alpaca that’s been in a nursing home for a few years but it’s ok with it because it’s family comes to visit regularly and it found a group of friends to play bridge with on Thursday evenings. Nobody’s impressed with your alpaca.

But since you’re so concerned about my appearance, allow me to respond. First up: makeup. Worry no more, my sweet pre-me, I wear makeup at least 5 days out of the week. I’m still far too vain and far, far too un-contoured to pull off the natural look fulltime just yet. And of course, I haven’t forgotten the “white Whoopi Goldberg” comment. I will #alwaysremember. However, even without brows, the natural look is far and away better than the 18 hours of mascara you were rocking all up and down your eyelids, under-eyes and upper cheeks. Reality check: smeared mascara is only cool if you’re ’92 Courtney Love or any-year Rihanna. Which you’re not. Invest in some makeup remover, you’ll thank me later. But you have NO leg to stand on with the hair – you know we hate to wash our hair!!! At least I hid the tangles and grease in a topknot. Unfortunately, that means I can’t refresh it because I can’t undo it. So I just let the topknot be until it decides it wants to come down. It’s better this way, trust me.

But I MUST defend my outfit. I mean, don’t I get a tiny bit of credit for at least getting back into my old clothes?? Dude, maternity clothes are amaaaaaaaaaaaazing. They’re so comfy and stretchy, it was hard to force myself back into garments with what you refer to as an ‘English hand’ and what I now refer to as ‘stretchless Chinese foot-binding fabric’. And you definitely did look better in the top, but that’s only because you’re much skinnier and much more toned and your boobs didn’t Hulk out past the point of containment yet. Truth is, ain’t nobody but you got time for jeans-slouching, especially when I don’t want to be in these stupid jeans anyway. So, fuckin’… shut up. And those shoes are really great. Just super duper. Extremely excellent. Ugh, I can’t even sell it, you’re a hundred percent right, I should burn these. That being said, I do happen to have friends in Secaucus, and they are the shit. So up your ass with that comment.

Now one last thing, my little chicka-me: are you seriously judging me for drinking a diet coke?? You probably smoked 13 half cigarettes last night, breaking only to rinse your mouth out with vodka and some kind of fruit juice swished together and slopped into a Target martini glass. I’ll take Diet Coke breath over eau de Marlboro all day every day, you broke ass Carrie Bradshaw tryna-be. And yes, I do have Lean Cuisines in my freezer – what do you have in yours? Oh wait, I remember – Jagermeister* and Fudgsicles, aka the breakfast of champions. How on earth do you think I’m (somewhat) fitting back into these clothes? You either get regular Coke or your get your wardrobe back, but NOT BOTH! I know, it’s a regular Sophie’s choice, but that’s motherhood! And by the way, Sophie chose for me to get my wardrobe back, but that’s mostly because she thinks I swapped regular Coke out for ghee and coconut oil. Don’t tell her.

The bottom line is that I’m happier right now than I have ever been. So chin up, girl – you have some wonderful times ahead of you. Who cares if your hair isn’t washed (it isn’t) or you’re not rocking a full face everyday (you’re not), or you ordered a pair of Sketchers off Amazon (that’s my bad, apologies). But your husband is fucking amazing, your baby is fucking incredible, and you’re still fucking legendary in your own mind. But do us both a favor and pipe down – not on anything specifically, you just talk too much.

Xoxo,

Claire after she learned the difference between annoying and cool

*Fun fact – just when I needed to spellcheck Jagermeister, that same bottle was still in my freezer like some kind of deus drunk machina. I’m starting to fear it.