Apr 19, 2011

You Ain't the Boss of Me


Here’s a big newsflash for everyone: I have breasts. Two of them. And while not huge, they enter the room before the rest of me and announce my presence. They are, I would say, undeniable.

 I also have a vagina. And while this does not enter a room before me, I would also say that it is undeniable. The absence of a bulge in the front of my pants means that you know what’s going to be there instead.

I also have unintentionally big, intentionally fake-blonde hair. I’m round and soft-looking. Although I’m young, I look younger than I actually am. And on days when I’m dressed the way I like, I look like I’m maybe 40% Elvegren pinup girl, 30% cartoon character, and 30% Aging Starlet—you know, the once-perfect ingĂ©nue just slightly past her prime, who copes with the passing years with booze and pills and overdressing for every occasion with something that’s a little too sparkly, or too revealing, or too ruffled; the woman who maybe fell down drunk in a ditch while walking into the party, but goddamn it, she still looks good, and she’s going to tell you that loudly and belligerently if you look at her sideways.

I am also fucking brilliant.

Apr 9, 2011

Don't Hate the Playah, Part the First


“You hate men, don’t you?!” he demanded.  It was more of a statement than a question. 

The guy is maybe 25, 26—one of the oldest students in the class of 35.  He had just described a play, a comedy, in which three wives discover that their husbands accidentally got locked in a meat cellar, and collectively the wives decide to…leave them in there. 

I laughed.  Because it sounds like a funny premise for a dark comedy.  And the guy was describing a comedy. But then:  “You hate men, don’t you?!”

Quite honestly, I was floored.  “Hate men?” I thought, “Me, of all people?”  I stood there in front of the class, mouth gaping open, trying to process the accusation.  And everything in the room went all foggy and turned into colorful, squiggly lines—you know, the psychedelic ones that transport you into the mandatory dream sequence in The Brady Bunch or really, in any other 1970s-era TV show—as I fell backwards down the rabbit hole of my own mind, looking for what could have ever inspired such a comment.

Honestly, I’d be lying if I said that my relationship with men as a whole is unconflicted.  It’s totally conflicted.  I’m not sure, but a bit of conflict might be an inherent part of heterosexuality—gender-based differences become significant because of sexual tension.  Maybe.  But that seems like kind of a lame rationale.

When I was super, super young—maybe four or five years old—I remember thinking that when I grew up, I was going to turn into my father.  Literally.  I thought I would grow up to be a man.  The why for this is anyone’s guess, but my concept of transformation into my dad—because hey, I was a little baby—was absolutely literal.  Literal to the point where I forced myself to eat spinach because my dad said it would “put hair on my chest”.  Because I thought that would be awesome.  Because men had hair on their chests. 

Oh, thank god that didn’t happen.