DISCLAIMER: What follows is decidedly unfeminist and I am not ashamed.
11:00pm: It was a long day at the office, and a long night of editing away in my home office (a.k.a. my bed when my laptop computer is open on it). YAAAWN. Phew, my eyelids feel heavy.
11:05pm: Time to wash my face and brush my teeth. I close my laptop, put it on the floor beside my bed, and hop out of bed, on my side. My side is furthest away from the door to my bedroom. I walk all the way around the foot of the bed, swerve to avoid walking into the book case, and another book case, and another piece of furniture. I head for the bathroom.
11:06pm: It occurs to me as I flip on the bathroom light that it makes no sense to take the long way around to the bathroom. I avoided crawling over to the other side of the bed & hopping out right beside the door because there is usually a person lying there beside me. Tonight, however, I am alone. Mental note: Stop doing that. Next time crawl across the bed, reach the bathroom quicker. Next time.
11:22pm: I am back in bed, tucked into freshly washed sheets. They feel heavenly, and smell divine. My white comforter floats around my face like a cloud. I nuzzle into my pillow. For a brief moment I consider reading my book, but decide not to. I am simply exhausted. I reach up and turn off the light.
11:27pm: I am a little cold. I actually felt cold a minute ago, ignored it. I thought the temperature of my body would warm up the cool clean sheets, and that in a minute I'd be toasty.
It didn't. I'm still cold.
But I'm so tucked in...
Knowing that in a minute I'll be freezing, I throw the covers off of me, swing my feet around to my side of the bed, walk all the way around the foot of the bed, narrowly missing two bookcases and a piece of furniture, and open up my closet door to rummage around for my little black hoodie. Of course I'm cold, I think, shivering a little, the wood floor cool on my bare toes. My nightgown is a pink, loosefitting, summer-y little dress. What am I thinking? This is New England, most people probably tuck into bed wearing flannel PJs and socks. Mental note: the pink nightgown is only a viable option when wrapped around a boy.
11:29: I fish my hoodie out from between a blanket and a towel on the top shelf of my closet. Finally! I shove my goosebump covered arms through the sleeves of my hoodie. This is the same sweatshirt that Rachel once referred to as "the smallest sweatshirt she'd ever seen." Duh, I got it at the kids section at Walmart. I head back to my bed, back past the furniture and the two book cases, all the way around the foot of the bed, to my side. I dive under the covers, throw them dramatically over me, and nuzzle in, attempting to recapture my formerly blissful, tucked in state. I close my eyes and sigh, realizing that, damn it, I just did it again.
11:32pm: I am curled up on my side of the bed. Way on my side. As in, as though there was a person on the other side. Actually, more like as though there were two people on the other side. Or perhaps as though a line of demarcation had been drawn down the middle of the bed, and were I to cross that line, I lose a digit or a limb. But whatever. I'm too tired to adjust.
11:37pm: I feel ashamed that I was so quick to surrender the privilege of sprawing across my queen bed. I worry that this is a symbolic representation of my own independence. I thus creep a few inches closer to the center of the bed. My fingers crawl over to the other side like little spiders. I tuck them under the other pillow.
12:ooam: I am dozing now, almost asleep actually, when I realize that I am still cold. The thought wakes me up. That's it, this itty-bitty Walmart hoodie ain't cuttin it. I need to find the other hoodie. But where is it? The bathroom? I remember my independence this time, and crawl out on the other side of the bed. To do so, I must wrestle the sheets out from under the other pillow, and tear them from between the mattress and box spring, where I had so neatly tucked them just hours earlier while making the bed. I try to do this with as little effect as possible, so I don't ruin my beautiful bed-making handiwork. In the process, I fail to untuck the sheets enough, get my right foot caught in a tangled mess of covers, and basically fall out of the bed, wacking my arm against the wall, right on the spot where I bruised it last week when I fell down the stairs.
12:02am: I am finally back in bed, wrapped in the other hoodie, which is bigger, warmer, and navy blue. I pull the hood up over the crown of my head. I remember to situate in the middle of the bed, and am, for the most part, comfortable. I reach up to the thermostat above my head, and turn it sharply to the right, just in case. Having exhausted all possible hoodie options, my last resort is to turn up the heat.
1:35am: I wake up sweating, swaddled, nearly strangled in the huge navy blue hoodie. My decision to turn the heat up to "way way high" in a moment of sleepless frustration now seems totally dumb. Also dumb was my decision to eat my weight in ice cream before going to bed. My body is clearly having a bitch of a time processing all those carbs, especially in this oppressive, almost tropical heat. My room is sweltering, and my once lovely sheets are now twisted around my legs. They feel swampy, yet the air is as dry as the sahara. I throw the covers off of me, frown up at the ceiling, and sigh.
Is body termperature really this difficult to control???
2:00am: I am half alseep on top of the covers, and it appears to be cooling off in my room. I have cranked the thermostat down to "comfort zone", and it's true, my body temperature does appear to be approaching a more comfortable zone. At least the radiator isn't heaving and wheezing like it was before, struggling to pump my room full of as much hot air as possible.
2:10am: I am cooler, perhaps ready for a sheet.
3:20am: I somehow wormed my way under the blankets in my sleep. Okay, fair enough.
5:00am: I recall that this hour, the final hour before day break, is the coldest hour of day. I grab the navy blue hoodie, which is by now cool and dry, and put it on. This time, I leave the hood off my head.
?am: In my dream I see my mother and my friend Kim. We are drinking peppermint tea, and laughing over some joke I just told, about penguins and pandas. I don't recall the punch line, but they seem to, and they seem to think it was hilarious. They are laughing and laughing and I do too, even though I don't think whatever I just said was very fun. I laugh anyway, it is a forced laugh, then realize I have to pee and excuse myself to use the ladies room. In my dream I know I am in my mom's house, but I've never been inside this house before. It kind of looks like Aunt Jan's place in Sacamento. Where the heck is the bathroom?
6:57am: I have to pee. I glance at the clock. My alarm is going to go off in four minutes. I stare up at the ceiling. Maybe if I close my eyes I can sleep for just a little bit longer...I shut them... oh my god, do I have to pee. I brace myself for the cold wood floor on my feet, then swing my legs over my side of the bed. I walk all the way around the foot of the bed, swerve to avoid bookcase #1 & bookcase #2, and narrowly miss the other piece of furniture.
7:00am: I investigate the dark circles under my eyes in the mirror as I wash my hands. Wow, do I look tired. I twist the knobs on the faucets to off, and as the spray of the water ceases I hear my alarm clock go off, bleating like an angry sheep.
Happy Monday.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
pretty people
During dinner the other night, the Mathemetician made an interesting comment that I have been pondering for days. He said:
"The pretty people that I know tend to be far more self conscious than their more average counterparts."
I think he's right. Most of the people I know happen to be quite pretty, and also, quite insecure. I think about the beautiful, intelligent girls I know, who fall into bed with mediocre guys that in the end treat them like shit, who are wooed there by flattery, as if no one had ever told them they were pretty before, as if they were hearing such compliments for the very first time. I think of the gay friend of mine who acted truly surprised when referred to him as totally hot, despite the fact that I found headshots and an old modeling portfolio in his room once, who I know believes, deep down, that he could turn any straight guy by virtue of his looks alone.
In a sense, we live in a culture where pretty = power. Things happen more easily for pretty people: they get served first in bars, are more apt to be approached for anything really. They are simply more marketable. Then why are these pretty people so self-conscious, so powerless?
Is it because beauty is something that can be taken away? Or because it's emminently subjective, something that inevitably fades with age?
"The pretty people that I know tend to be far more self conscious than their more average counterparts."
I think he's right. Most of the people I know happen to be quite pretty, and also, quite insecure. I think about the beautiful, intelligent girls I know, who fall into bed with mediocre guys that in the end treat them like shit, who are wooed there by flattery, as if no one had ever told them they were pretty before, as if they were hearing such compliments for the very first time. I think of the gay friend of mine who acted truly surprised when referred to him as totally hot, despite the fact that I found headshots and an old modeling portfolio in his room once, who I know believes, deep down, that he could turn any straight guy by virtue of his looks alone.
In a sense, we live in a culture where pretty = power. Things happen more easily for pretty people: they get served first in bars, are more apt to be approached for anything really. They are simply more marketable. Then why are these pretty people so self-conscious, so powerless?
Is it because beauty is something that can be taken away? Or because it's emminently subjective, something that inevitably fades with age?
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
the podcast
So, the Mathemetician has a podcast. It is a confession podcast, based on a friend's website, where people can anonymously call in and confess to the sordid things they've done or would like to do, their hopes, dreams, fantasies. The confessions run the gamut from innocuous to obscene. People call in to confess, and the Mathemetician and three of his closest friends, the Dudes, listen and comment. It's funny. And sometimes also very sad.
Here's my confession: At first I liked the podcast a lot. Then I kind of started to hate it. I wasn't able to put my finger on it exactly, but here are a few reasons thought might be behind it:
1. They talk about other girls being hot on the show. This is petty and I am embarrassed to admit I feel this way, but it's true.
2. They don't really feature any cool, intelligent women on the show. The only calls they regularly feature are from a 19 year old girl who calls in after plying herself with alcohol, and says "cute" (a.k.a. stupid) things. The other calls from girls that they feature are usually confessing to things like masturbating while listening to the podcast--you know, intelligent stuff like that.
3. The Mathemetician carves time out of his schedule for the show, and takes it quite seriously. He has even cancelled plans with me to do it, which is annoying, but forgivable. I thought a lot about this, and have deduced that I feel jealous of his ability to be focused on himself and his own work, and devotes real, serious time to his creative projects. Really I am projecting frustration with my inability to do the same onto his poor podcast.
After thinking about reasons 1-3 a lot, and discussing reasons them the Mathemetician, I decided to turn over a new leaf in the new year, and give the podcast a second chance. Here's why:
Reason No.1 is a totally stupid reason to not support him--I need to just buck up and get over my insecure self on that one.
The Mathemetician actually agreed with Reason No.2, and encouraged me to call in and get my friends to call in, as representative cool, intelligent women. My friends are brilliant and funny--I can do that.
Reason No.3 is another thing I need to seriously get over because, duh, The Mathemetician's creative focus was what drew me to the Mathemetician in the first place. Also, if I want to create anything in this lifetime, I need to mimic his behavior in this regard, rather than pout about it.
So, in an effort to embrace the podcast, I called in last week. I left a message, commenting about how funny one of the Dudes was being during the last show. This particuar Dude, in normal life, is deadpan guy. On the most recent podcast, though, he was being totaly hilarious, talking in funny, voice-over quality character voices and shit. It was awesome in that it was totally incongruous with his usually composed presence. So I called and told him so. Why not--new year, new leaf, right?
Last night I found out that, during taping, they featured my call. In a segment that the Dudes who wrote the shownotes called HANDJOB OF THE WEEK.
I feel so embarrassed. The Mathemetician made them stop taping. The show will likely never even be played. But, still.
This is how I feel when I think of my call being referred to as HANDJOB OF THE WEEK: small, stupid, sexualized, and powerless. My Sarah Lawrence education, my successful career, my writing, my 12 years of classical piano training. All of these things disappear.
And somehow, I am the one who feels embarrassed, like it's my fault, like I brought this upon myself. One could argue that I should have known that the winds would blow this way. One could say, "tough shit, sweetheart. You listened to the show before, you know how those guys talk and think and act," and it's true, I do.
This makes me think a lot about sexism. About the sexism that exists in all of us, that we don't even realize is there. It was latent in the show, I know that now. Even though I second guessed myself, tried to tell myself it wasn't, I know now that that's why the show bugged the shit out of me. But I also know that these guys are intelligent people. They are friends of mine, who think highly of me. At least I think they do.
I suppose like love, sexism works in mysterious ways.
Here's my confession: At first I liked the podcast a lot. Then I kind of started to hate it. I wasn't able to put my finger on it exactly, but here are a few reasons thought might be behind it:
1. They talk about other girls being hot on the show. This is petty and I am embarrassed to admit I feel this way, but it's true.
2. They don't really feature any cool, intelligent women on the show. The only calls they regularly feature are from a 19 year old girl who calls in after plying herself with alcohol, and says "cute" (a.k.a. stupid) things. The other calls from girls that they feature are usually confessing to things like masturbating while listening to the podcast--you know, intelligent stuff like that.
3. The Mathemetician carves time out of his schedule for the show, and takes it quite seriously. He has even cancelled plans with me to do it, which is annoying, but forgivable. I thought a lot about this, and have deduced that I feel jealous of his ability to be focused on himself and his own work, and devotes real, serious time to his creative projects. Really I am projecting frustration with my inability to do the same onto his poor podcast.
After thinking about reasons 1-3 a lot, and discussing reasons them the Mathemetician, I decided to turn over a new leaf in the new year, and give the podcast a second chance. Here's why:
Reason No.1 is a totally stupid reason to not support him--I need to just buck up and get over my insecure self on that one.
The Mathemetician actually agreed with Reason No.2, and encouraged me to call in and get my friends to call in, as representative cool, intelligent women. My friends are brilliant and funny--I can do that.
Reason No.3 is another thing I need to seriously get over because, duh, The Mathemetician's creative focus was what drew me to the Mathemetician in the first place. Also, if I want to create anything in this lifetime, I need to mimic his behavior in this regard, rather than pout about it.
So, in an effort to embrace the podcast, I called in last week. I left a message, commenting about how funny one of the Dudes was being during the last show. This particuar Dude, in normal life, is deadpan guy. On the most recent podcast, though, he was being totaly hilarious, talking in funny, voice-over quality character voices and shit. It was awesome in that it was totally incongruous with his usually composed presence. So I called and told him so. Why not--new year, new leaf, right?
Last night I found out that, during taping, they featured my call. In a segment that the Dudes who wrote the shownotes called HANDJOB OF THE WEEK.
I feel so embarrassed. The Mathemetician made them stop taping. The show will likely never even be played. But, still.
This is how I feel when I think of my call being referred to as HANDJOB OF THE WEEK: small, stupid, sexualized, and powerless. My Sarah Lawrence education, my successful career, my writing, my 12 years of classical piano training. All of these things disappear.
And somehow, I am the one who feels embarrassed, like it's my fault, like I brought this upon myself. One could argue that I should have known that the winds would blow this way. One could say, "tough shit, sweetheart. You listened to the show before, you know how those guys talk and think and act," and it's true, I do.
This makes me think a lot about sexism. About the sexism that exists in all of us, that we don't even realize is there. It was latent in the show, I know that now. Even though I second guessed myself, tried to tell myself it wasn't, I know now that that's why the show bugged the shit out of me. But I also know that these guys are intelligent people. They are friends of mine, who think highly of me. At least I think they do.
I suppose like love, sexism works in mysterious ways.
Friday, January 13, 2006
"you just don't like black men"
"hey, cutie," he said.
But I thought he said "hey, kitty," so I looked up, a bit startled, and looked right at the man talking on the cell phone.
Ugh. Oops. Shit.
HIs eyes light up. "Hey gorgeous," he says. "You look so pretty today. Mmm, mmm, mmm, I mean, you look real, real good." I laugh. I do? Do I look real, real good in my calf length winter coat, with a scarf is wrapped around my face? There isn't much to see here. Maybe he likes my boots.
"Hey sweetie, come on honey, aren't you gonna stop and talk to me?"
I laugh again. His words sound so silly, he must be trying to joke with me. I shake my head at him.
"Dude...seriously," I say.
Of course, this only encourages him more.
"Hey beautiful, hey blondie, where you going? Can I talk to you, just for one second, just for a minute? You know, you look so good today."
I put my head down. Keep walking.
"Come on sweetie, come on. Just stop and talk to me for a minute." Okay, at first he made me laugh, but now this Joe is starting to annoy me. And he's still got that cell phone to his ear--is he even talking to anyone? What does the person on the other end think of all this? Is he on hold?"
"Oh, okay. I get it, I see. You just don't like black men."
Ugh. For christ's sake. Yes, yes, that's it. I just don't like black men. See, you're just not my type. If you were white or Puerto Rican or Asian, I'd be interested. In fact, I'd drop what I'm doing right now and give you a blow job.
You've got me all figured out, cell phone dude. That's right, my problem is that I just don't like black men.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
November Blonde
At long last! The blogging neophyte conquers photo hosting! The Mathemetician took this picture of me in Prague. Note my roots, which were just starting to grow out then. The photo captures the many layers of the blonde at that point, the different shades with highlights & lowlights. It has only gotten blonder since, and I will post photos soon to demonstrate as much. See, on my last visit to Jason on December 10, I arrived late, and he totally berated me. This was odd, because Jason is a friend, plus it's kinda weird & vulnerable to get yelled at by your stylist, when you know you're going to be sitting there at their mercy for like 2 hours. He was really mad and actually kinda mean! I think he was just in some sort of foul mood, and my lateness was the last straw, because after the first ten minutes, he started being all extra nice to make up for his 'tude. Anyway, I learned two important lessons that day.
#1 Don't be late for hair appointments, especially when your hair is a foot long and require 100 years for color, cut, and styling.
#2 Hell hath no fury like a stylist scorned. Don't fuck with your stylist, because they can seriously fuck up your locks.
Friday, December 09, 2005
reblonding
Tomorrow is a day for re-blonding. I have an appointment for a "partial", which means that I will spend 2 hours in the morning at the hair salon, getting my roots touched up. It always takes forever. Jason, my stylist, is amazing. My hair responds to him like it never does to me. It just likes him better, and is on better behavior when he is wielding the hair dryer and round brush. When I walk out, I will look traffic-stoppingly gorgeous.
By consulting my Outlook calendar, I see that last time i went in for hair was October 1st, just two months ago. The entry on my calendar is so innocuous--it simply reads: Hair, Liquid, 10:30am. That morning was anything but innocuous, though. For starters, I was probably still half drunk when I walked in for my appointment. At the very least, I was exhausted, emotionally devastated, and looked like I'd been run over by a Mack truck. The previous night had been spent having an explosive, atrocious fight with my ex. We'd foolishly decided to meet for a few drinks just a month after our break-up. He wanted it to be "his treat", in honor of my birthday two week before. At first it was quite nice. We were civil, the food & drinks were good. It felt like a good milestone, a sign that we could "do this" whole break up thing.
I left the bar to meet up with my pretty, petite brunette friend. Then, two hours later, Dramafest 2005. I went out to have a smoke and he'd left me a harassing voicemail, which beget a screaming drunken argument, and lots of hysterical crying on my behalf. Suddenly, not so nice.
It seems like all of that happened a lifetime ago, and most certainly longer than two months ago. It seems even longer ago that I was happily engaged to a wonderful man. He used to be so, so good to me. Sometimes I think about it and feel utterly mystified by what has happened to that person. Where did he go? When I'm mad at him like I am lately, it's easy to pretend that he was never really there in the first place. But I know that's not true either.
So much has changed. The actual time, as recorded by my Outlook calendar is not expressive of time. My two inch roots are a bit more expressive. At least they provide evidence of time elapsing, some reminder that, even when it doesn't really feel like it's happening, a person is growing every single day.
So, tomorrow, reblonding. I think this time I'll go even lighter.
By consulting my Outlook calendar, I see that last time i went in for hair was October 1st, just two months ago. The entry on my calendar is so innocuous--it simply reads: Hair, Liquid, 10:30am. That morning was anything but innocuous, though. For starters, I was probably still half drunk when I walked in for my appointment. At the very least, I was exhausted, emotionally devastated, and looked like I'd been run over by a Mack truck. The previous night had been spent having an explosive, atrocious fight with my ex. We'd foolishly decided to meet for a few drinks just a month after our break-up. He wanted it to be "his treat", in honor of my birthday two week before. At first it was quite nice. We were civil, the food & drinks were good. It felt like a good milestone, a sign that we could "do this" whole break up thing.
I left the bar to meet up with my pretty, petite brunette friend. Then, two hours later, Dramafest 2005. I went out to have a smoke and he'd left me a harassing voicemail, which beget a screaming drunken argument, and lots of hysterical crying on my behalf. Suddenly, not so nice.
It seems like all of that happened a lifetime ago, and most certainly longer than two months ago. It seems even longer ago that I was happily engaged to a wonderful man. He used to be so, so good to me. Sometimes I think about it and feel utterly mystified by what has happened to that person. Where did he go? When I'm mad at him like I am lately, it's easy to pretend that he was never really there in the first place. But I know that's not true either.
So much has changed. The actual time, as recorded by my Outlook calendar is not expressive of time. My two inch roots are a bit more expressive. At least they provide evidence of time elapsing, some reminder that, even when it doesn't really feel like it's happening, a person is growing every single day.
So, tomorrow, reblonding. I think this time I'll go even lighter.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Trepidation
So, I haven't posted anything in months. There's good reason for that.
You see, my last post about the Italian in the wine store wasn't very good, and caused me far more trouble than it was worth. I tried to make it cinematic & interesting, but I rushed though it, and it shows. I can accept that it's not my best writing. Really, I was plowing through the piece for the wrong reasons. I was trying desperately to get something posted on this site, to actually get some traction with this project, to be a little less self-critical and self-censoring for once. The result? A post that is undeniably sub-par.
I wrote that piece around 8/9, hence the date, and posted it about a month later. Two days later, the boy I am seeing--to whom I shall heretofore refer as "the Mathematician"--confronted me about it. All of a sudden we were having an issue and, all of a sudden, a talk. Since then, I've been blog-paralyzed.
At the time of our conversation, the Mathematician and I were a little less serious. More specifically, we were both feeling kinda serious about each other, but weren't using certain types of verbiage, such as "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" to refer to each other and our feelings. I have good reason for this. I just broke up with my fiance of 3 1/2 years. It was recent and colossal, and I need to just take my time right now.
None of this changes the fact that I care about the Mathematician quite a lot. I have since started using the b-word, and am quite psyched about it. And I was upset to learn that he was not psyched to read my post about the Italian in the wine shop.
To understand this, I try to imagine how I'd feel to read a similar story about the Mathematician. Maybe he'd be at a rock show, for some indie band I've never heard of. A cute little thing wearing a tee-shirt for Pinback or the Futureheads or yet another band I've never heard of and cat eye glasses would start talking to him about music. Maybe she's in a band herself, maybe she's even a bassist. She'd be just his type, and they'd have a fantastic, intelligent, and infuriatingly flirtatious conversation. So yes, I can understand where he's coming from. Just imagining him flirting with this indie rock bitch has me hot under the collar. And she's a figment of my imagination--not an Italian who can be found at the wine shop on Tuesdays and Thursday.
So what's a girl to do? What does a writer do when her pet project threatens her love life?
I have this curiosity, this minor obsession even, with the exchanges that occur between men and women, where sexuality is at play and it messes everything up. I have this fantastic title, UNDERCOVER BLONDE. But, more importantly, I have a deeply vested personal objective for this project. It's my attempt to understand how the body betrays us, how external factors, like the way we walk, talk, move, and act can at times speak more loudly about us than our voices do.
Here's an example. When I first started working as a waitress at Tremont 647, someone made up the ridiculous story that before working at the restaurant, I worked as a stripper. "Kitty? Yeah, she totally used to strip. I mean, just look at the way she walks! It's like she's dancing around a stripper pole. Duh!" Maybe it started out as a joke, but it certainly spread as a rumor, and shortly became accepted as fact, all unbeknownst to me (news-flash: people rarely spread lies about you to your face.) Months later a friend mentioned my "previous job" to me casually--to my horror. I turned bright red and almost dropped the plate I was clearing right in a regular's lap. It was humiliating.
Sure, Tremont is your typical cliquey little South End restaurant, and of course they have their own special and especially bitchy ways of teasing the new girls. But, like so many myths, at the core of this one there is some fact. Something about my body, something about the way I move, speak, and act screamed "stripper" to these people. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I am incredibly self conscious, brutally self critical, and struggle every day with the deeply ingrained mental image of myself as a fat, unloveable little girl.
So, where is that disconnect? How can I be communicating something so far from my true feelings, without even realizing it? It's something that's troubled me since that dirty old bastard ogled me for the very first time at my very first restaurant job when I was just fourteen years old. This blog, this social experiment, the book & personal research I intend to do to support it is all part of my quest to resolve two grossly conflicted parts of myself that somehow share a mind and body. I would like to find a way for these parts to coexist in peace.
My last posting is entirely unsatisfying to me, because all it shows me doing is flirting shamelessly with a stranger for a couple of free glasses of wine, then wondering lamely if he'd have given me freebies if I was fat. That's not what happened. What happened was this:
I had PMS and was feeling exceptionally bloated and ugly that day. I went out to meet my adorable, petite, brunette friend, who has great clothes and was dressed way better than I was. The Italian was friendly and accommodating to me, sure, but I assumed he was just being professional, and hoping for a decent tip. I didn't think for a second that he thought I was pretty--how could he, when I was looking so totally fat & bloated and under-dressed next to my adorable, petite, brunette friend? We got drunk, stayed until close, and as we stumbled out the door, my girlfriend intimated that she thought the Italian liked me. We tabulated the amount of free wine he'd poured for us and decided that, yes, this may in fact be true. Of course, we were drunk, so who knew, and who the fuck cared?
That said, I understand exactly where the Mathematician is coming from. And going forward I will approach this project and all that it entails, starting with this very post, with no small degree of trepidation.
You see, my last post about the Italian in the wine store wasn't very good, and caused me far more trouble than it was worth. I tried to make it cinematic & interesting, but I rushed though it, and it shows. I can accept that it's not my best writing. Really, I was plowing through the piece for the wrong reasons. I was trying desperately to get something posted on this site, to actually get some traction with this project, to be a little less self-critical and self-censoring for once. The result? A post that is undeniably sub-par.
I wrote that piece around 8/9, hence the date, and posted it about a month later. Two days later, the boy I am seeing--to whom I shall heretofore refer as "the Mathematician"--confronted me about it. All of a sudden we were having an issue and, all of a sudden, a talk. Since then, I've been blog-paralyzed.
At the time of our conversation, the Mathematician and I were a little less serious. More specifically, we were both feeling kinda serious about each other, but weren't using certain types of verbiage, such as "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" to refer to each other and our feelings. I have good reason for this. I just broke up with my fiance of 3 1/2 years. It was recent and colossal, and I need to just take my time right now.
None of this changes the fact that I care about the Mathematician quite a lot. I have since started using the b-word, and am quite psyched about it. And I was upset to learn that he was not psyched to read my post about the Italian in the wine shop.
To understand this, I try to imagine how I'd feel to read a similar story about the Mathematician. Maybe he'd be at a rock show, for some indie band I've never heard of. A cute little thing wearing a tee-shirt for Pinback or the Futureheads or yet another band I've never heard of and cat eye glasses would start talking to him about music. Maybe she's in a band herself, maybe she's even a bassist. She'd be just his type, and they'd have a fantastic, intelligent, and infuriatingly flirtatious conversation. So yes, I can understand where he's coming from. Just imagining him flirting with this indie rock bitch has me hot under the collar. And she's a figment of my imagination--not an Italian who can be found at the wine shop on Tuesdays and Thursday.
So what's a girl to do? What does a writer do when her pet project threatens her love life?
I have this curiosity, this minor obsession even, with the exchanges that occur between men and women, where sexuality is at play and it messes everything up. I have this fantastic title, UNDERCOVER BLONDE. But, more importantly, I have a deeply vested personal objective for this project. It's my attempt to understand how the body betrays us, how external factors, like the way we walk, talk, move, and act can at times speak more loudly about us than our voices do.
Here's an example. When I first started working as a waitress at Tremont 647, someone made up the ridiculous story that before working at the restaurant, I worked as a stripper. "Kitty? Yeah, she totally used to strip. I mean, just look at the way she walks! It's like she's dancing around a stripper pole. Duh!" Maybe it started out as a joke, but it certainly spread as a rumor, and shortly became accepted as fact, all unbeknownst to me (news-flash: people rarely spread lies about you to your face.) Months later a friend mentioned my "previous job" to me casually--to my horror. I turned bright red and almost dropped the plate I was clearing right in a regular's lap. It was humiliating.
Sure, Tremont is your typical cliquey little South End restaurant, and of course they have their own special and especially bitchy ways of teasing the new girls. But, like so many myths, at the core of this one there is some fact. Something about my body, something about the way I move, speak, and act screamed "stripper" to these people. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I am incredibly self conscious, brutally self critical, and struggle every day with the deeply ingrained mental image of myself as a fat, unloveable little girl.
So, where is that disconnect? How can I be communicating something so far from my true feelings, without even realizing it? It's something that's troubled me since that dirty old bastard ogled me for the very first time at my very first restaurant job when I was just fourteen years old. This blog, this social experiment, the book & personal research I intend to do to support it is all part of my quest to resolve two grossly conflicted parts of myself that somehow share a mind and body. I would like to find a way for these parts to coexist in peace.
My last posting is entirely unsatisfying to me, because all it shows me doing is flirting shamelessly with a stranger for a couple of free glasses of wine, then wondering lamely if he'd have given me freebies if I was fat. That's not what happened. What happened was this:
I had PMS and was feeling exceptionally bloated and ugly that day. I went out to meet my adorable, petite, brunette friend, who has great clothes and was dressed way better than I was. The Italian was friendly and accommodating to me, sure, but I assumed he was just being professional, and hoping for a decent tip. I didn't think for a second that he thought I was pretty--how could he, when I was looking so totally fat & bloated and under-dressed next to my adorable, petite, brunette friend? We got drunk, stayed until close, and as we stumbled out the door, my girlfriend intimated that she thought the Italian liked me. We tabulated the amount of free wine he'd poured for us and decided that, yes, this may in fact be true. Of course, we were drunk, so who knew, and who the fuck cared?
That said, I understand exactly where the Mathematician is coming from. And going forward I will approach this project and all that it entails, starting with this very post, with no small degree of trepidation.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Special treatment
The waiter was European, Italian perhaps? And hot. It was obvious that we had a special connection. I arrived about ten minutes before my pretty, petite, dark-haired girlfriend. I was alone, had no place to sit in the crowded little bar, and must have looked vulnerable. He was in the weeds, but polite and kind.
It's a narrow little sliver of a bar, with a huge butcher block in the back, where they carve up expensive meat to order and offer an amazing selection of wine. The back wall is lined with reach in coolers full of hanging pink sausages, pale cheese, and various prepared foods. All of the tables and chairs are high, so you are constantly on eye-level with your servers. This is one of those little things I notice because I work in a restaurant--the difference between looking up at your server and looking them straight in the face. It's more intimate and a huge reason why bartenders get more respect than waitresses. They are not looking down on their customers, and their customers have nothing to prove.
So, when the waiter poured me a taste, when I swirled it around in my glass, when I held it up to my nose then my lips, and nodded in approval, I was looking him right in the eye. It was sweet--we had a sort of understanding.
Looking back, I wonder if he or anyone else would have talked to me right away if I weren't me--if I were fat, or dark-skinned, or old. Or, conversely, if I exuded the kind of confidence that makes some people seem completely at home while drinking alone at the bar.
We were two girls out on the town, out on their own for a girl's night. I frequent the place, and I knew he recognized me, had perhaps even waited on me once or twice. But he'd never given me any sort of special treatment before.
A free bottle of wine later, we stumbled out of the restaurant drunk. My friend and I are not big people, and we would have been well saturated on what we ordered alone. His free tastes were meant as a little icing on the cake, I guess, but when he lingered with us at the door, saying goodbye and thank you and goodbye again, I had to wonder. I was sheepish and drunk, but according to my girlfriend, his eyes were trained on me. Immediately I began to wonder what he'd think of me if I were 100lbs bigger, or twenty years older, and when I realized that that would render me invisible, I wished I hadn't had quite so much to drink.
It's a narrow little sliver of a bar, with a huge butcher block in the back, where they carve up expensive meat to order and offer an amazing selection of wine. The back wall is lined with reach in coolers full of hanging pink sausages, pale cheese, and various prepared foods. All of the tables and chairs are high, so you are constantly on eye-level with your servers. This is one of those little things I notice because I work in a restaurant--the difference between looking up at your server and looking them straight in the face. It's more intimate and a huge reason why bartenders get more respect than waitresses. They are not looking down on their customers, and their customers have nothing to prove.
So, when the waiter poured me a taste, when I swirled it around in my glass, when I held it up to my nose then my lips, and nodded in approval, I was looking him right in the eye. It was sweet--we had a sort of understanding.
Looking back, I wonder if he or anyone else would have talked to me right away if I weren't me--if I were fat, or dark-skinned, or old. Or, conversely, if I exuded the kind of confidence that makes some people seem completely at home while drinking alone at the bar.
We were two girls out on the town, out on their own for a girl's night. I frequent the place, and I knew he recognized me, had perhaps even waited on me once or twice. But he'd never given me any sort of special treatment before.
A free bottle of wine later, we stumbled out of the restaurant drunk. My friend and I are not big people, and we would have been well saturated on what we ordered alone. His free tastes were meant as a little icing on the cake, I guess, but when he lingered with us at the door, saying goodbye and thank you and goodbye again, I had to wonder. I was sheepish and drunk, but according to my girlfriend, his eyes were trained on me. Immediately I began to wonder what he'd think of me if I were 100lbs bigger, or twenty years older, and when I realized that that would render me invisible, I wished I hadn't had quite so much to drink.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Bitch Shoes
The other day, I made them shut up, and I knew that day that I had won. This is what I wore:
A simple hot pink, sort of sparkly tee shirt from Anthropologie, which is cut well, accentuates my bust while slimming my waist
Also well-cut Seven jeans. These used to be tight, but are looser now since I lost a few pounds, but like any quality clothing item, they still fit well
Hair curly & up in pins, in my signature style
Jangly silver bangles
My Perfect shoes
I have worn this outfit a thousand times since I first assembled it last summer. It's my sort of signature backup, something cute to throw on when meeting friends for drinks, in which I always feel good. But really, it's nothing special.
I saw them from a block away, clustered in the usual spot, on the corner of Gainsborough and Huntington, right by Symphony Market II and Burger King, waiting to shake their cups in my face and ask me for change. These men are the worst and most frequent kinds of sexual harassers. They want my attention, and they want my money, which I guess gives them special license to call me anything they want. You never know what you're gonna hear.
Sometimes they just call me pretty. Sometimes they call me sexy. Sometimes they call me pretty, then sexy, then bitch because I don't give them any money. No matter what, they make me feel about as big as a mosquito. I hate it, And for different reasons, I struggle each time with denying them change. We both know I have money and they have none, so why shouldn't I share? Then they call me whatever it is that day, and my guilt vanishes, replaced by shame, anger, frustration, and fear. When I walk past these men, I am at once degraded, and degrading.
But the other day, I won. I decided to take anything that happened in this interaction for the team, because I now want to write a book, and I can chalk up any pain/embarrassment/anger/frustration I feel to "living" and "research". So I held my head up high, kept my steps long, and kept walking. I made every effort to wipe any trace of openness from my face: the curling remnants of a smile, faint happy wrinkling in the corner of my eyes, raised eyebrows--all of these, erased. I replaced them with a firm, angry looking mouth, and a glare that I assume looked accusatory. I wasn't trying to look like mad, per se, but I presume that I did.
But I think what cinched the deal were My Perfect Shoes. These are shoes that I bought on sale last summer from Diesel. They are slightly platform, open toed, and sturdy in structure, with a curved heel and shabby chic fabric. Perhaps it was the way these three inch heels pitched me forward, or the thunk thunk that their wood heel makes along the sidewalk. Or perhaps it was just the extra three inches, with the added height of my Prom-tastic up-do, plus my very formidable posture, which can make me seem about 6 feet tall at times.
So there the men were, shaking their cups, commenting to people as they walked by, craning their necks in an effort to make eye contact with these rich strangers. But as I approached, the men grew silent. As I stalked by, I could feel their faces looking directly into mine, eyes searching. As I passed them, I knew they were carefully observing my ass. But all I heard was one brazen sole whisper to a friend: "I ain't saying anything."
I walked on and smiled. Because that one day, I won.
It must have been the shoes.
A simple hot pink, sort of sparkly tee shirt from Anthropologie, which is cut well, accentuates my bust while slimming my waist
Also well-cut Seven jeans. These used to be tight, but are looser now since I lost a few pounds, but like any quality clothing item, they still fit well
Hair curly & up in pins, in my signature style
Jangly silver bangles
My Perfect shoes
I have worn this outfit a thousand times since I first assembled it last summer. It's my sort of signature backup, something cute to throw on when meeting friends for drinks, in which I always feel good. But really, it's nothing special.
I saw them from a block away, clustered in the usual spot, on the corner of Gainsborough and Huntington, right by Symphony Market II and Burger King, waiting to shake their cups in my face and ask me for change. These men are the worst and most frequent kinds of sexual harassers. They want my attention, and they want my money, which I guess gives them special license to call me anything they want. You never know what you're gonna hear.
Sometimes they just call me pretty. Sometimes they call me sexy. Sometimes they call me pretty, then sexy, then bitch because I don't give them any money. No matter what, they make me feel about as big as a mosquito. I hate it, And for different reasons, I struggle each time with denying them change. We both know I have money and they have none, so why shouldn't I share? Then they call me whatever it is that day, and my guilt vanishes, replaced by shame, anger, frustration, and fear. When I walk past these men, I am at once degraded, and degrading.
But the other day, I won. I decided to take anything that happened in this interaction for the team, because I now want to write a book, and I can chalk up any pain/embarrassment/anger/frustration I feel to "living" and "research". So I held my head up high, kept my steps long, and kept walking. I made every effort to wipe any trace of openness from my face: the curling remnants of a smile, faint happy wrinkling in the corner of my eyes, raised eyebrows--all of these, erased. I replaced them with a firm, angry looking mouth, and a glare that I assume looked accusatory. I wasn't trying to look like mad, per se, but I presume that I did.
But I think what cinched the deal were My Perfect Shoes. These are shoes that I bought on sale last summer from Diesel. They are slightly platform, open toed, and sturdy in structure, with a curved heel and shabby chic fabric. Perhaps it was the way these three inch heels pitched me forward, or the thunk thunk that their wood heel makes along the sidewalk. Or perhaps it was just the extra three inches, with the added height of my Prom-tastic up-do, plus my very formidable posture, which can make me seem about 6 feet tall at times.
So there the men were, shaking their cups, commenting to people as they walked by, craning their necks in an effort to make eye contact with these rich strangers. But as I approached, the men grew silent. As I stalked by, I could feel their faces looking directly into mine, eyes searching. As I passed them, I knew they were carefully observing my ass. But all I heard was one brazen sole whisper to a friend: "I ain't saying anything."
I walked on and smiled. Because that one day, I won.
It must have been the shoes.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Parts
I have a very fickle and often antagonistic relationship with my body. When I was young, I was a fat kid. Looking back on the pictures now, I'm kind of shocked that that's how I thought of myself at the time. But it has shaped me, possibly more than anything else.
I was tall, always about a head taller than my twin brother until he finally, anti-climactically outgrew me. My cheeks in the old photos are roundish, but my body doesn't look how I remember it. I remember it as a wide, fleshy vessel, inside of which I hid, waiting with a book propped in front of my nose for puberty to hit and give me hips and breasts and perhaps even someday a boyfriend who would pull me out of the hellish in-between.
I spent so may hours wishing my body different, and when I look at the pictures from those years now, I can finally see the cute little girl my mother saw. I now know why she kept the infamous horse picture, that wretchedly embarrassing photo of me posing with the horse in front of the barn. I am standing there, with my hair teased into perfect Jersey coiff, in my big hoodless green & white Joyce Kilmer Elementary School sweatshirt layered over thigh hugging stretch pants. On my feet I am wearing white keds. I am awkward but adorable and I look so happy, and I can see why my mother kept this photo on display in the front hallway, much to my chagrin, until just about a year ago.
I hated that picture so much in my youth. Mom protected it, knowing full well what I had done to my old dance pictures in a fit of self hatred. She found them lying in a lifeless pile, many multicolored snowlflakes in the bottom of the plastic bag lined trashcan in her bedroom. I hated the horse picture, the dance pictures, all the pictures so much. When I looked at them, all I saw were parts, like the parts I described above. Disjointed, ugly, hateful parts.
So it should come as no surprise, if I saw myself as parts as a child, and if I continue to see myself as parts to this day, that I am completely and utterly confused when confronted by an assessment of my whole being. It continues to come as a surprise when people call that whole being "hot stuff", or "sexy", or simply hiss like the Dominicans used to in my neighborhood in Jamaica Plain. What, exactly, do they see? What do they see that I don't?
I was tall, always about a head taller than my twin brother until he finally, anti-climactically outgrew me. My cheeks in the old photos are roundish, but my body doesn't look how I remember it. I remember it as a wide, fleshy vessel, inside of which I hid, waiting with a book propped in front of my nose for puberty to hit and give me hips and breasts and perhaps even someday a boyfriend who would pull me out of the hellish in-between.
I spent so may hours wishing my body different, and when I look at the pictures from those years now, I can finally see the cute little girl my mother saw. I now know why she kept the infamous horse picture, that wretchedly embarrassing photo of me posing with the horse in front of the barn. I am standing there, with my hair teased into perfect Jersey coiff, in my big hoodless green & white Joyce Kilmer Elementary School sweatshirt layered over thigh hugging stretch pants. On my feet I am wearing white keds. I am awkward but adorable and I look so happy, and I can see why my mother kept this photo on display in the front hallway, much to my chagrin, until just about a year ago.
I hated that picture so much in my youth. Mom protected it, knowing full well what I had done to my old dance pictures in a fit of self hatred. She found them lying in a lifeless pile, many multicolored snowlflakes in the bottom of the plastic bag lined trashcan in her bedroom. I hated the horse picture, the dance pictures, all the pictures so much. When I looked at them, all I saw were parts, like the parts I described above. Disjointed, ugly, hateful parts.
So it should come as no surprise, if I saw myself as parts as a child, and if I continue to see myself as parts to this day, that I am completely and utterly confused when confronted by an assessment of my whole being. It continues to come as a surprise when people call that whole being "hot stuff", or "sexy", or simply hiss like the Dominicans used to in my neighborhood in Jamaica Plain. What, exactly, do they see? What do they see that I don't?
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
You always remember your first
This is my new project, a journal of my body, my clothing and the reactions they elicit. I want to do this for a few reasons: 1) to enhance my understanding of the limits of my own body, where skin meets space, where the universe ends & I begin; 2) to enhance my understanding of the language of this body, which seems to be sending crazy messages to everybody all of the time; and 3) to get to the bottom, for once & for all, of the sexual harassment experience.
The bottom line is this: when I turned thirteen years old, my body became visible as a billboard. I grew a few inches taller, developed hips and breasts, and all of a sudden, my body was no longer my own. It became a public entity, avidly consumed by the viewing public. Along came judgment and commentary by that public. I have been reeling ever since.
Let me start at the beginning: the first time I recall feeling vulnerable because of my body in the workplace. I remember it vividly because I couldn't believe it was happening to me--I couldn't believe I was being "sexually harassed", this thing that happened to grown women as they worked adult jobs, like Anita Hill.
I was working at my very first job, as a busser on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Black Forest Cafe in Amherst, NH. My uniform was a white, buttoned-down shirt and khakis. I wore my hair up in a ponytail, and I'm sure I wore some sort of sneakers. I didn't know much about making myself look good then, but I knew what frumpy felt like, and I do recall feeling utterly so each morning as I pulled up to the restaurant in my navy blue 1985 Cutlass Supreme.
It was the end of my shift that day, and I was putting away glassware. I learned early on from my crazy, abusive boss (my first, but definitely not my last) that the only way to earn my stripes would be to work constantly. I had to work as though the minute I stopped working, I might be caught & be fired. Even when nothing was going on, I should work, find a way to have something to do, find a way to make myself look busy and un-fireable. Wiping glassware was the last ditch effort. It came last after filling sugar bowls, marrying ketchups, straightening silver on tables. It was a job I did slowly, so as to drag it out until ti was time to go home. So, I was wiping glassware with a damp cloth, methodically, to remove the spots that inevitably formed as the steamy water from the dishwater dribbled down their sides to dry on their cool, still surfaces.
I was so young then, and a busser, so I had no real experience talking to customers. There was a man at the bar that day, of whom I wasn't aware until I went to put the glasses back in their rightful spot. I remember nothing about him, but for the fact that he was old, about my dad's age, and perhaps a little crazy. As I bent over to place a glass on the middle rack, back turned to the counter guest, and, I suppose, my ass sticking up in the air, a man's voice said "Yeah,that's real nice. Why don't you bend over a little further, sweetheart." I felt the blood rush to my face, quickly dropped to a kneeling-squat closer to the floor, and rushed the remaining several glasses on to their shelves as fast as I could. Then I stood abruptly, head down, face red, and rushed to the kitchen. I could feel his eyes on me, and hear him chuckle softly as I walked away.
I still remember exactly how it felt when the man spoke to me that way, though the details of the day remain fuzzy. I remember it vividly because I reinhabit those feelings on an almost daily basis, each time a man talks to me as though my body is public property. I zoom back to the body of my fourteen year old self: surprised to hear such words spoken; embarrassment seeping from my stomach to the tips of my ears like spilled ink; frozen in the moment with fear, and no notion of what to do next. And I feel so stuck because this man is completely, outrightly demeaning me, but couching his cruelty in the form of a compliment.
Thus stuckness, this confusion, this embarrassment: that is what I want this blog to be about.
The bottom line is this: when I turned thirteen years old, my body became visible as a billboard. I grew a few inches taller, developed hips and breasts, and all of a sudden, my body was no longer my own. It became a public entity, avidly consumed by the viewing public. Along came judgment and commentary by that public. I have been reeling ever since.
Let me start at the beginning: the first time I recall feeling vulnerable because of my body in the workplace. I remember it vividly because I couldn't believe it was happening to me--I couldn't believe I was being "sexually harassed", this thing that happened to grown women as they worked adult jobs, like Anita Hill.
I was working at my very first job, as a busser on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Black Forest Cafe in Amherst, NH. My uniform was a white, buttoned-down shirt and khakis. I wore my hair up in a ponytail, and I'm sure I wore some sort of sneakers. I didn't know much about making myself look good then, but I knew what frumpy felt like, and I do recall feeling utterly so each morning as I pulled up to the restaurant in my navy blue 1985 Cutlass Supreme.
It was the end of my shift that day, and I was putting away glassware. I learned early on from my crazy, abusive boss (my first, but definitely not my last) that the only way to earn my stripes would be to work constantly. I had to work as though the minute I stopped working, I might be caught & be fired. Even when nothing was going on, I should work, find a way to have something to do, find a way to make myself look busy and un-fireable. Wiping glassware was the last ditch effort. It came last after filling sugar bowls, marrying ketchups, straightening silver on tables. It was a job I did slowly, so as to drag it out until ti was time to go home. So, I was wiping glassware with a damp cloth, methodically, to remove the spots that inevitably formed as the steamy water from the dishwater dribbled down their sides to dry on their cool, still surfaces.
I was so young then, and a busser, so I had no real experience talking to customers. There was a man at the bar that day, of whom I wasn't aware until I went to put the glasses back in their rightful spot. I remember nothing about him, but for the fact that he was old, about my dad's age, and perhaps a little crazy. As I bent over to place a glass on the middle rack, back turned to the counter guest, and, I suppose, my ass sticking up in the air, a man's voice said "Yeah,that's real nice. Why don't you bend over a little further, sweetheart." I felt the blood rush to my face, quickly dropped to a kneeling-squat closer to the floor, and rushed the remaining several glasses on to their shelves as fast as I could. Then I stood abruptly, head down, face red, and rushed to the kitchen. I could feel his eyes on me, and hear him chuckle softly as I walked away.
I still remember exactly how it felt when the man spoke to me that way, though the details of the day remain fuzzy. I remember it vividly because I reinhabit those feelings on an almost daily basis, each time a man talks to me as though my body is public property. I zoom back to the body of my fourteen year old self: surprised to hear such words spoken; embarrassment seeping from my stomach to the tips of my ears like spilled ink; frozen in the moment with fear, and no notion of what to do next. And I feel so stuck because this man is completely, outrightly demeaning me, but couching his cruelty in the form of a compliment.
Thus stuckness, this confusion, this embarrassment: that is what I want this blog to be about.
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