Heading out for a date--a rarefied social ritual in today's college society--in heels, a push-up bra, and some miracle working jeans that give even a gangly Irish girl something resembling an ass, I realized that, for all my efforts, I was still just "cute". I've been hearing it all my life. At first, of course, it was true. I had saucer eyes and corkscrew curls. I wore hair ribbons and Mary Janes. Cute doesn't even cut it-- I was freaking adorable.  But then I grew up. And up. My mother, my aunts and my grandmother could only cluck, and make promises for that day "When I filled out".  I never exactly filled out, and my brunette curls never became honey-colored waves --and as a result I got funny, and I got smart. How else was I going to get attention?

But even though I've made as much peace with my body as I'm ever going to (real beauty comes from the inside, everyone is beautiful, beauty is only skin-deep yadda, yadda, yadda) that little adjective still nags a bit. "Cute" is right up there with having "a great personality" in the ranks of compliments that aren't really compliments. Though a superlative for high-school crushes and kittens, when it comes to women  it might just be the most passive-aggressive word in the English language. So, damn it, I'm taking it back. I'm cute, and I'm proud. I like me the way I am-- even that means I'm more Ellen Page than Scarlett Johanson.  I'm cute-- but I'm also  a writer, a student, an activist, a friend, a sister, a daughter, and even-- in the right light and the right jeans-- a pretty hot date.