Every Halloween, much of the female population dresses as sexy, skanky, whory as possible. This year my costume was an inanimate object not normally considered sexy, made sexy. It's part of an inside joke from a few years ago (mainly with NBF) that somehow seemed funnier if most people witnessing the costume weren't in on the gag. Aural Girl and Possible Boy ended up going to non-Chicago portions of Illinois for the weekend and my social awkward/laziness landed me at a single party where I pretty much laughed alone.
But the costume turned out very well and I was walking sex.
I spent much of the past week growling at the extra 15 pounds Emsam exploded around my middle. I actually got stuck in the corset that used to be too big for me, and shirts and dresses all seemed to point directly to the weird lumpy bulge popping out at my waist line. I tried to contain it and hide it and wondered what I was doing bothering with a sexy costume at all now that I'm such a lard-ass.
Fucked. Up.
I still fought with the tights that wanted to roll beneath my roll, still buttoned my sweater lower than I would have a year ago. But once I found tight cotton short-shorts to wear over the tights, I remembered the First Rule of...well, certainly not Fight Club. Aesthetics Club? They'll be staring at my ass, not my middle. And if that's embarrassing or whorish, in autumn it easy to forget how much less we wear to the beach in summer.
But here's the real deep-dark "secret" of it all: I like the attention. I like the sense of power. Not only was my costume an inside joke with myself, so was the reaction the costume produced. I got to be Holly Golightly and Mae West all at once, boys' sly remarks caught in their tied tongues.
When we're dressed up as someone else, we get to be ourselves. And for me, as I think for a lot of women, ourselves are a lot more sexual than we think we're supposed to admit. I think my ideal is a smile with just a shadow of smirk wrinkling my lip. Enough to remind myself I'm in control but no real malice.
I could have brought home one of the boys. Considered it. But once I'm reminded that even with my awkward and crazy and my gimpy migraine life, that I can still command a room, then I get to require basic things of a boy like intelligence, attractiveness, and giving a shit about me. Greedy? Perhaps. Thinking a whole fucking lot of myself just because I wore something slutty? Yes. But I'm hanging out with Ken on Tuesday and no matter how sexual I'm feeling, that's a much better option than random strangers.
Happy Halloween.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Ethics, Judgment, Fault: Conversations with my Mother
Yesterday I had a conversation with my mother about blogs and privacy and all of that.
When I write about my life, there are other people in it. What right do I have to publicize their secrets and stories? But I do have some right to my own happiness, and writing is how I process. And not to sound pretentious/conceited, but "Art" has a stake in this equation as well. The written work created effects far more people than those mentioned in it, and that is every bit as important as the process of its creation, for what good is the unaffected life?
My parents pick pick pick and criticize my (and everyone else's) every action. My own doubts in my mind sound in their voices, echoing back and forth conversations real to imagined and imagined to real.
I tried to be clear and strong to my mother yesterday that she, as a therapist, needs to insulate her privacy to the degree she sees fit, and that's her prerogative. If she wants to write books (as she has) and be findable on Facebook (as she does and is), those are all her decisions and her issues. I am a writer and not a therapist. I write under a pseudonym now, but my business is under my real name, I'm on Facebook, I am me and I am not afraid to share with the anonymous world or with people who might know me very well. I get to choose what I cloak about myself. If she is the therapist and the person trying to maintain privacy, she needs to be the one to put up the blocks and the barriers. It is literally her job, not mine.
When it comes to writing about other people in a public forum, I wrestle with it all the time. My instinct is to share it all as openly and honestly as I can, real names attached because then you know what I'm talking about and it's true and pure; anything I change or fabricate on purpose will be somehow less beautiful than the genuine article.
But I behave myself. I'm not actually the narcissist I often think I am. Maybe that's why I'm so bothered by my mom calling back today with her ominous "We need to talk. About the blog thing," that I know is just her dissatisfaction with my trying to put the responsibility on her instead of taking the burden on myself.
I have to decide what path to take when I call her back, because if I just listen and respond the conversation will be her telling me why I'm hurting other people by doing the one thing that means the most to me in the world, and it's my responsibility to protect her and myself and everyone else from her crazy stalking client because she (my mother) didn't foresee the professional conflicts of Facebook.
I get frustrated because I feel like everything is all about my mother except for judgment and blame.
When I write about my life, there are other people in it. What right do I have to publicize their secrets and stories? But I do have some right to my own happiness, and writing is how I process. And not to sound pretentious/conceited, but "Art" has a stake in this equation as well. The written work created effects far more people than those mentioned in it, and that is every bit as important as the process of its creation, for what good is the unaffected life?
My parents pick pick pick and criticize my (and everyone else's) every action. My own doubts in my mind sound in their voices, echoing back and forth conversations real to imagined and imagined to real.
I tried to be clear and strong to my mother yesterday that she, as a therapist, needs to insulate her privacy to the degree she sees fit, and that's her prerogative. If she wants to write books (as she has) and be findable on Facebook (as she does and is), those are all her decisions and her issues. I am a writer and not a therapist. I write under a pseudonym now, but my business is under my real name, I'm on Facebook, I am me and I am not afraid to share with the anonymous world or with people who might know me very well. I get to choose what I cloak about myself. If she is the therapist and the person trying to maintain privacy, she needs to be the one to put up the blocks and the barriers. It is literally her job, not mine.
When it comes to writing about other people in a public forum, I wrestle with it all the time. My instinct is to share it all as openly and honestly as I can, real names attached because then you know what I'm talking about and it's true and pure; anything I change or fabricate on purpose will be somehow less beautiful than the genuine article.
But I behave myself. I'm not actually the narcissist I often think I am. Maybe that's why I'm so bothered by my mom calling back today with her ominous "We need to talk. About the blog thing," that I know is just her dissatisfaction with my trying to put the responsibility on her instead of taking the burden on myself.
I have to decide what path to take when I call her back, because if I just listen and respond the conversation will be her telling me why I'm hurting other people by doing the one thing that means the most to me in the world, and it's my responsibility to protect her and myself and everyone else from her crazy stalking client because she (my mother) didn't foresee the professional conflicts of Facebook.
I get frustrated because I feel like everything is all about my mother except for judgment and blame.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Dual Citizenship
September, my head was so good. I had days and days of zero headache. Zero. And almost every day the pain was at least tolerable enough to function.
At first, I freaked out. I was so desperate to cram in everything I don't get to do when I'm a blob. I worked my tail off and felt like it wasn't good enough, like I wasn't getting enough done, like there was so much more to do and any moment I wasn't doing something visibly productive was a waste of my precious healthy time.
Then there were my friends. When the migraines are bad, I have trouble maintaining friendships. I have to cancel plans all the time and then we stop making plans. I can do things spontaneously, but few other people are available at my healthy whims. Then when we do get together, what do I have to talk about? My life is fairly limited, and if you don't find my present occupation or the ethereal and observational shit I like to spew interesting, I will bore you. Illness is incredibly isolating, and with a healthy dose of narcissism (I'm a writer, for fuck's sake), the Bad Days go by as all about me. My pain. My struggle. Pain is loud and makes me strongly aware of myself, everything else just background and things that might add or detract from pain. I'm like an infant, entirely corporal and needy. I kick and scream at pain, hunger, loneliness, frustration, and when these base things are quieted I marvel at my own two feet and the way light and color exist in and out of my dreams.
When September was good, I barely started relearning how to go out and be outside of myself, try to rediscover those friendships I care about. I went out to dinner with Possible Girl. I went back to the bar. I went to a party. Just getting my feet wet.
My neurologist says that my brain thinks pain is very important. We find something new to confuse it for as along as possible but it's trying to get back to the pain. When it finds it again, we go to something new. I like him better than the migraine clinic. The clinic is more aggressive, which was great short-term, but now that they've kind of blown their wad, he still has lots of ideas and worries about things like my long-term health and if my medications are killing my kidneys. But the point is, we'll keep working on finding things to trick my brain and keep getting chunks of time without pain. And each chunk of time I'm not in pain, I'll keep learning how to live a double life. And maybe I can take some of my this-is-just-how-it-is migraine-life acceptance into the bright places, and maybe I can take some of my human contacts and friends with me back into the dark.
Because October, thus far, sucked. I've gotten some good days. But more than half the days have been bad with some really bad. Today was particularly rotten with light and sound kicking my ass and logic evading me at every corner. When I curl up into myself, I want it to be about someone else for a change. I've had enough of me. I'm reading, looking for contact on the internet, but obviously it's not the same. I may call a friend tonight and deal with the pain of mechanised cell phone sound. Tell me a story of you.
At first, I freaked out. I was so desperate to cram in everything I don't get to do when I'm a blob. I worked my tail off and felt like it wasn't good enough, like I wasn't getting enough done, like there was so much more to do and any moment I wasn't doing something visibly productive was a waste of my precious healthy time.
Then there were my friends. When the migraines are bad, I have trouble maintaining friendships. I have to cancel plans all the time and then we stop making plans. I can do things spontaneously, but few other people are available at my healthy whims. Then when we do get together, what do I have to talk about? My life is fairly limited, and if you don't find my present occupation or the ethereal and observational shit I like to spew interesting, I will bore you. Illness is incredibly isolating, and with a healthy dose of narcissism (I'm a writer, for fuck's sake), the Bad Days go by as all about me. My pain. My struggle. Pain is loud and makes me strongly aware of myself, everything else just background and things that might add or detract from pain. I'm like an infant, entirely corporal and needy. I kick and scream at pain, hunger, loneliness, frustration, and when these base things are quieted I marvel at my own two feet and the way light and color exist in and out of my dreams.
When September was good, I barely started relearning how to go out and be outside of myself, try to rediscover those friendships I care about. I went out to dinner with Possible Girl. I went back to the bar. I went to a party. Just getting my feet wet.
My neurologist says that my brain thinks pain is very important. We find something new to confuse it for as along as possible but it's trying to get back to the pain. When it finds it again, we go to something new. I like him better than the migraine clinic. The clinic is more aggressive, which was great short-term, but now that they've kind of blown their wad, he still has lots of ideas and worries about things like my long-term health and if my medications are killing my kidneys. But the point is, we'll keep working on finding things to trick my brain and keep getting chunks of time without pain. And each chunk of time I'm not in pain, I'll keep learning how to live a double life. And maybe I can take some of my this-is-just-how-it-is migraine-life acceptance into the bright places, and maybe I can take some of my human contacts and friends with me back into the dark.
Because October, thus far, sucked. I've gotten some good days. But more than half the days have been bad with some really bad. Today was particularly rotten with light and sound kicking my ass and logic evading me at every corner. When I curl up into myself, I want it to be about someone else for a change. I've had enough of me. I'm reading, looking for contact on the internet, but obviously it's not the same. I may call a friend tonight and deal with the pain of mechanised cell phone sound. Tell me a story of you.
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