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Sunday, April 20, 2008
Wii's Got the Whole Pole in It's Hands!
Well, maybe I do need a Wii after all:abcnews.com
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Shameless
Feet firmly planted in a wide stance, knees slightly bowed she stood in front of the full-length mirror, naked for all the world to see – at least all the world currently inhabiting the women’s locker room. She was not naked in the transition from swimsuit to sweat pants or the one from towel to tank top, she was just plain ol’ naked. Her flesh was not hidden by the open door of a locker or a strategically placed duffle bag. She stood in the sink area away from the lockers and the other semi-clad women. She flossed her teeth as one roll of fat rested upon another around her middle and her breasts draped across that, her nipples like two cherries on her melting sundae best.I caught a glimpse of her on my way to the toilet and thought about her the whole time I was peeing. I have not been consistent in my views on public nudity. On the one hand, I had to give her a silent, “Right on, Sister!” for displaying with pride her whole self. On the other hand, isn’t it polite to show a little more modesty and a little less mons pubis when removing clothes in front of others? By the time I made it to the sink, the first hand had won – hands down. As if to answer my question of modesty, the fat, naked, grandma – still in front of the mirror – took a swig of mouth wash and began to gargle. Her short dark hair stood at attention in all directions, much like the mane of lion who’d had a run-in with an electric fence. Like the queen of her pride, she began to arch her head back; I could almost hear her Listerine-scented roar: “Damn right I am naked. I own my body, and right now I own the whole damn locker room. Whatcha gonna do about it?” Grandma arched until the back of her skull was level with her ample bottom, gargling the whole way.
In my mind, she is still arching backwards. The image of the naked, lioness grandma is tattooed on my brain (it wouldn’t fit on my ankle). I have spent years practicing my awkward dance of trying to avoid nipple or pubic hair exposure while changing in front of others. I have balanced a bra here and shimmied a skirt there in order to keep from view no more than a square foot of my fleshy real estate. Why?
When I was a kid, I was naked all of the time; I showered in front of my mother and sister right through the sixth grade. Even in high school I had a group of friends with whom I’d roam the halls, and the woods, sans clothes. It wasn’t even a sexual thing (most of the time); we just enjoyed being naked. I still enjoy being naked. My husband sometimes has to give me a not-so-gentle reminder that we “live in a goddamn fishbowl!” so that I will put on a robe or turn off the lights.
The locker room has been a different story for me. Perhaps I fear the scrutiny of others; if I keep a towel around my waist they won’t be able to see exactly how many dimples reside on the flesh of my bottom. Further, I seek not to offend. I don’t want to make other people feel uncomfortable by subjecting them to a fuller view than they had anticipated. I want to be polite.
Wow! What a load of BS!! Who the hell cares how many dimples I have on my ass? Why should it matter if a nipple or two comes into contact with an eyeball or two? Who made these stupid rules, and why the hell have I been politely following them?
Grandma makes her own rules, and I thought of her today as I emerged from the public shower post work out. Instead of awkwardly squirming and wriggling to make myself invisible while I reached for my towel, I stood up straight and dried myself as I would in the privacy of my own home. I took my time getting dressed. I didn’t quite make it to flossing in the buff, but I didn’t hide either. As ridiculous as the image of a naked, gargling grandma may be, it is not nearly as ridiculous as the concept of a grown woman so afraid of revealing her own body that she foolishly dances with her towel to avoid, at all costs, the dreaded exposure of a nipple. Right on, Grandma! By the time I’m sixty, I hope to be gargling right along side you.
Labels: body image, fitness, rant
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Like a Bull...
So a man walks into a sex toy shop, marches right up to a woman he’s never met, and offers her advice about her potential vibrator purchase. “You know what you should get? You should get this one. Look at what it does…” The man breaks the vibrator shopping etiquette of keeping one’s focus firmly on the products to be perused. He removes the blinders everyone dons upon entry into a sex shop (maybe he forgot to pick up his complimentary pair to begin with). The man looks the woman right in the eye and suggests what she might shove up her vagina. My stomach is in my throat, and I can feel my eyes bulging from my skull with the thought of his audacity. The woman, to my surprise, appreciates the advice. She thanks the man and looks more intently at the product he so enthusiastically suggested. The man, who is my husband, flashes me a winning grin, and I love him even more than I did when he entered the shop sans blinders, nostrils flaring. Sometimes bulls are good for china.Monday, April 7, 2008
You Can Take the Girl out of the Valley…
After the arrival of my little sister in mid-1980, likely in order to give my poor mom a much-needed break, I began going on regular trips to the mall with my Dad – the Sherman Oaks Galleria, no less. Like totally. We would stroll about, making sure to stop at the pet store and the ice cream shop, maybe the bookstore. Unbeknownst to my father, I would spend a good deal of the time soaking up the fashion sense of the cool teenagers who dwelled permanently in their mall habitat.
By the time I was five or six, I had absorbed enough that I would make these trips outfitted in a purple striped miniskirt and fringed, suede boots. My thin, brittle hair had gone through several stringy, stinky, perms by the time I was seven-and-a-half. I was born into the Valley, and, from a very young age, I felt an uncontrollable pull to epitomize this hotbed of cutting-edge fashion.
Before I hit double-digits, I was so obsessed with the movie Flashdance, that I would wait until my mom was distracted or on the phone so that my friends and I could sneak off and try to make it to the “forbidden” nude scenes before getting caught. My best friend and I would wrap our dancing feet in masking tape and reenact Jennifer Beals’s sweat-pumping dance montage right along with the grainy VHS tape. Sex and dance and legwarmers were forever, and inextricably, mixed in my young mind.
By the time I was ten and taking modern dance class, I made my mom alter my leotard to have high, French cut, wedgy-producing leg holes; I was sure this made it more stylish and sexy. I wasn’t even out of the sixth grade. (The sixth grade where Sarah and I pretended to be prostitutes to Todd and Ryan’s mock-pimps -- I am not sure I even really understood what a pimp was, but I knew it was fun to walk arm-in-arm with a boy.) The outfit I ultimately wore to my sixth grade graduation was based largely on an outfit I’d seen on a carefree model in a cigarette billboard. It involved a red crinoline and suspenders.
Once I was in junior high, I debated at least weekly with my mother about the appropriateness and length of my skirts. “No, Mom! It is a skirt, not a belt! Really!” I never went so far as to pack extra clothes for school in my white, Esprit bag, but I did roll up my skirt a waistband width or two before entering Mrs. Warnock’s homeroom most mornings.
As I began to get a whiff of ninth grade and a new decade around the corner, I buried my memories of fluorescent fishnet socks and white, rhinestone high-tops. My ponytails got lower, my bangs flatter, and my attitude decidedly more “artsy.” By the time I graduated high school, I think most people would have called me a hippy. I had ditched the neon and the miniskirts for Doc Marten’s and long, drab dresses. I chose black over hot pink and bragged about my recycling habits rather than my lip-gloss collection. The eighties were, most definitely, over
Last month, my friend Emily invited me to her birthday party. Her stylish Evite announced that the theme was, “Fairy Slut Bus.” Yes, Emily planned to make her party a moving experience by packing her scantily clad friends into a party bus and taking us to various clubs around town. Emily is pretty darn cool. I began to contemplate how to interpret the “Fairy Slut” mandate. By the night of the party I had it all figured out; the outfit seemed to put itself together.
Later, looking at pictures of the event, I realized that my inner Valley Girl had come out to dress me for the party. She had expertly paired my high heals with glitter legwarmers and used scissors to alter a watermelon pink top so it hung off one shoulder strategically revealing a teal, sequined bra strap. She made my hair huge with hot rollers, and, like totally, coated my eyes in bold purple and green shadow! In the absence of my mother to object to my inappropriate attire, I chose a fantastically short skort (I’ve developed a little modesty in my old age and thought a skirt might be too much). Thanks to Emily, I got to live the dream of my ten year-old-self. I realized that my inner slut, like totally, dwells in ‘8o’s, and she, is still, like fully, from The Valley. Sorry, Mom.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Jack of No Trades
Yesterday, I scrubbed two toilets, completed three loads of laundry and stared at my reflection in two freshly glistening mirrors. I was a personal shopper (I am a person), a cook, and a film critic. I was not a writer. During fleeting moments in my head, I wrote on the imaginary paper of my brain. I weighed semi-colons and considered ellipses. I thought flowery language, and I contemplated action verbs, but I was not a writer. I cleaned out my closet and Dust-Busted under the bed. I was a personal chef and a personal planner (again, the person being me), but I was not a writer.It is 8:06 on a Sunday night. For a mere paragraph I am a writer. Maybe I will sleep better tonight.
Labels: rant
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