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So I Wimped Out.
Jul. 30th, 2015 08:34 amI didn't go to the writers' thing last night.
I have a bunch of excuses the poorest one was the time got away from me and I hadn't eaten or picked up a snack to take, or decided on a piece to take to read.
To be fair, there is a long list of things I thought I would do yesterday but did not, while getting distracted with other things, mostly cleaning up my sewing area.
If I were a different species it would probably be one with obsessive arranging disorder, some type of bird with ornate display rituals or fussy nest cleaning tendencies, probably both.
I have a friend, D, who SERIOUSLY doesn't give a FF (flying fuck) what she looks like or what people think of her. She is a lovely, intelligent and thoughtful person but she gets irked at me and my conformity. I do like to disappear in a crowd. I am not a person who trusts her safety in large groups of humans (or geese either really, they freak me out in large numbers) so I try to blend in as much as possible. I had a horrible period in my life when regardless of how I dressed I got a lot of attention from men. I suppose it happens to every young woman. It wasn't until my thirties that I figured out that yellow hair of any length was like a red flag to a bull for men, so I shaved it off. Shortly after that I became a formal Zen student and wore nothing but black or white, easy peasy, nothing to think about, a wash cloth for face and head and I was good to go!
It's not that I don't ever want to look attractive. I was raised to believe that only good looking people (should) get what they want. My mother reminded me that even if you were stupid if you were pretty someone would like you and nobody could succeed if NO ONE liked them. Unfortunately her most frequent lament for me was that even though I might be a smart and attractive child I was also "unlikeable". I DO NOT ENJOY THE ATTENTION OF UNKNOWN HUMANS. The result of all this weird ingrained information is sometimes I simply grind to a halt when confronted with dressing for a social engagement.
I have a uniform, sort of business casual, white shirt, cotton, pants, sensible shoes. I take it off as soon as I get home so I don't get it dirty and hang it up: my deflated generic persona. But we are in the mist of a heat wave. I wear really loose flowing cotton pj sort of clothes. When I am alone I am comfortable this way because I don't think about it. I could not however bring myself to just go out with my five sheets of writing to stand up dressed in my pj's and read, nor could I put on my ironed shirt and pants in this heat.
It is ridiculous. I know this. But this engrained belief that though it is very wrong, people will hurt you just because of how you look. The most reasonable reaction is to push back, dress as crazy as you can, confront people and make them deal with the stupidity of it.
My ex had this confirmed habit of wearing dreads and just waiting to meet someone who would shake a dirty stick at him. He loved arguing with strangers. Of course we were abjectly poor, I mean starting the day with nothing to eat and ending hungry. I was the one who smiled and bobbed at the landlord when the rent was late, took jobs in offices dressed like a corporate drone to pay the debts and to feed us and then bore the look of disgust from his buddies sitting around the living room when I came home.
Yes, his buddies helped us when I was just too tired of arguing with him and quit to stay and look after the kids while he tried to find work, and he did, but that was another story. The thing was, we had to wear the RASTA uniform to get the help. And even in that outfit, I was still a woman and subject to objectification. I still had men making passes at me, men who were friends, but still not my friends, not when you got to it.
There was a brief period of childhood when I didn't feel like eyes were burning me. I could follow my interests and not even think of what others were seeing when they looked at me. Isn't that what everyone wants? So long as they do not intend harm isn't that what everyone should be confident in doing?
Humans, like animals, preen and display as an expression of identity, community and habitat. But why then instead of appearance being an ad on to their humanity does it become an ending of it?
I have a bunch of excuses the poorest one was the time got away from me and I hadn't eaten or picked up a snack to take, or decided on a piece to take to read.
To be fair, there is a long list of things I thought I would do yesterday but did not, while getting distracted with other things, mostly cleaning up my sewing area.
If I were a different species it would probably be one with obsessive arranging disorder, some type of bird with ornate display rituals or fussy nest cleaning tendencies, probably both.
I have a friend, D, who SERIOUSLY doesn't give a FF (flying fuck) what she looks like or what people think of her. She is a lovely, intelligent and thoughtful person but she gets irked at me and my conformity. I do like to disappear in a crowd. I am not a person who trusts her safety in large groups of humans (or geese either really, they freak me out in large numbers) so I try to blend in as much as possible. I had a horrible period in my life when regardless of how I dressed I got a lot of attention from men. I suppose it happens to every young woman. It wasn't until my thirties that I figured out that yellow hair of any length was like a red flag to a bull for men, so I shaved it off. Shortly after that I became a formal Zen student and wore nothing but black or white, easy peasy, nothing to think about, a wash cloth for face and head and I was good to go!
It's not that I don't ever want to look attractive. I was raised to believe that only good looking people (should) get what they want. My mother reminded me that even if you were stupid if you were pretty someone would like you and nobody could succeed if NO ONE liked them. Unfortunately her most frequent lament for me was that even though I might be a smart and attractive child I was also "unlikeable". I DO NOT ENJOY THE ATTENTION OF UNKNOWN HUMANS. The result of all this weird ingrained information is sometimes I simply grind to a halt when confronted with dressing for a social engagement.
I have a uniform, sort of business casual, white shirt, cotton, pants, sensible shoes. I take it off as soon as I get home so I don't get it dirty and hang it up: my deflated generic persona. But we are in the mist of a heat wave. I wear really loose flowing cotton pj sort of clothes. When I am alone I am comfortable this way because I don't think about it. I could not however bring myself to just go out with my five sheets of writing to stand up dressed in my pj's and read, nor could I put on my ironed shirt and pants in this heat.
It is ridiculous. I know this. But this engrained belief that though it is very wrong, people will hurt you just because of how you look. The most reasonable reaction is to push back, dress as crazy as you can, confront people and make them deal with the stupidity of it.
My ex had this confirmed habit of wearing dreads and just waiting to meet someone who would shake a dirty stick at him. He loved arguing with strangers. Of course we were abjectly poor, I mean starting the day with nothing to eat and ending hungry. I was the one who smiled and bobbed at the landlord when the rent was late, took jobs in offices dressed like a corporate drone to pay the debts and to feed us and then bore the look of disgust from his buddies sitting around the living room when I came home.
Yes, his buddies helped us when I was just too tired of arguing with him and quit to stay and look after the kids while he tried to find work, and he did, but that was another story. The thing was, we had to wear the RASTA uniform to get the help. And even in that outfit, I was still a woman and subject to objectification. I still had men making passes at me, men who were friends, but still not my friends, not when you got to it.
There was a brief period of childhood when I didn't feel like eyes were burning me. I could follow my interests and not even think of what others were seeing when they looked at me. Isn't that what everyone wants? So long as they do not intend harm isn't that what everyone should be confident in doing?
Humans, like animals, preen and display as an expression of identity, community and habitat. But why then instead of appearance being an ad on to their humanity does it become an ending of it?
