thediastema's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This isn't a good rant, but how many rants are? Let me begin by stating I'll defend to the death another woman's right to reproductive freedom, her right to go into combat, her right to equal pay for equal work, her right to ask out the man of her dreams, and her right to walk out the door with unplucked eyebrows and a fanny pack. I invest a sizeable portion of my income in my looks, I shave every damn day unless I'm somehow incapacitated, I've even had plastic surgery; I don't really expect anyone else to do these things just because she pees sitting down. Having said that, I am at heart nothing more than an aspiring trophy wife, and I'm not altogether sure I can explain how I got to that point. I do know this: beauty pageants, Barbie dolls and cheerleading fascinated me from an early age, and fashion magazines took hold not long thereafter. I've paid for orthodontal care for the children of numerous Clairol, L'oreal, and (back in my more naive days) even Revlon employees, not to mention the Lancome offspring I've sent to college. Generic clothing and drugstore makeup haven't heard from me in eons. So, I'm no natural Venus, obviously. Sure, I clean up fabulously, or at least I've been known to have my "second-string hottie" days, but it's a thorough and continual effort on my part, because I (much like many of your favourite stars, no doubt,) roll out of bed looking like a malnourished, jaundiced Michelin Man hosting a disobedient yellow tabby on his head. (If you slipped my all-too-tactful boyfriend a few ampoules of truth serum, he'd attest to this.) It takes about half an hour of fragranced sodium lauryl sulfate and painstaking triple-blade depilation to bring me back to "homo sapiens f., and another half hour of mousse, tweezers, hot air, carnauba wax, and titanium dioxide to get me into shape for hanging out with anyone other than Stevie Wonder. Once every few weeks I add to this a ceremonial pouring of carcinogens onto my scalp to get my hair into a shade that disagrees just a bit less horribly with my cherry-Pop-Tart-frosting skin. In keeping with the stereotype of the peroxide-abusing, mall-cruising young woman, I've made a decision not to further my education that's created no end of controversy in my personal and social life. And so I take hell for that -- a lot more than do, say, the millions who get four-year degrees in this country every year without ever mastering basic reading skills, the Ph.D.s out there who wouldn't know what to do with an apostrophe if it bit them on the ass, and the MBAs pacing their studio apartment floors right now because they still owe thousands in student loans and just got laid off from their "real, secure" jobs. But, you know, if I persue being an "ornament" as a hobby, it doesn't matter to these people that I was a National Merit Finalist, because my appreciation of eyeliner and cute boys, or my lack of ability to catch the point of "Donnie Darko," defaults me to the standing of "twinkie" in the eyes of all those people combined. Twinkie I may be. Pissed-OFF twinkie. Because it's a load of crap. Because as long as you have your youth and your figure people attribute every hardship in your life to the "fact" that you must be some kind of floozy, and because someone's out there trumpeting the cause of the intelligent plain being passed over for all the good stuff, but nobody really wants to admit it takes a certain kind of artistic intelligence to know what fabrics go together, or that you need a certain education before you can balance your mascara with your cheeks with your lips with your outfit and then gauge the whole mess so it's even appropriate to your appointment. And I know I've said it before about the unsung girlie sports, at which soccer and b-ball fans are prone to roll their collective eyes: if sequins, spandex, rouge, or knife-pleats are involved, so, invariably, is a clear and present risk of paralysis, brain damage, or untimely death, and it dwarfs the one that haunts you on the playing field, okay? Sure, your track-racing heart might explode, or the next guy's javelin might make a shish kebab out of you in some freak accident, but it's the athlete doing the Yurchenko or the twisting basket-toss who's taking a real gamble out there, so sit down, and hey, check her out if it's the only way to shut yourself up about her manicure, because if she weren't 5'2'', if she didn't have a delicate uniform to protect through the rest of the season, she could kick your beer-belly-sporting ass. And also, Coach? You're ugly. I'm having a beef with a particular breed of ugly men lately. I happen to believe ugly men are the scourge of the earth, because interestingly enough, they constitute about 90 per cent of the guys who catcall us on the streets, convinced they're entitled to all the good-looking honeys they want, or at least that they're supremely endowed with credentials to act as judges of just how hot our asses are -- when their own asses are sticking out the back of their Kmart jeans because they're that deluded about how fat they've gotten since they graduated from Flagship U. But, right, you know, I'm an idiot because not only do I care about my looks, I care about guys' looks, too. I think it really upsets people that all at once I keep my armpits smooth and hold men to a standard. NOW does some good work, but they'd take one look at my ideals and shake their heads, tongues-a-clucking. Conversely, Wendy Shalit would run screaming because from behind my coke-bottle glasses I've been known to bat my eyes like I'm all that or something, and enjoy myself past the pumpkin hour on a date, an early date, a date with a guy whom I'd likely never marry. And I eat cheese fries and I'm still a size four. It's a doughy size four, but I know it still pisses people off, because, god, what, do I think I'm exceptional, or something? Do I think I'm pretty enough to get by without a college education, or smart enough? Do I think perfumed soap and lip gloss and Banana Republic will save me from the consequences of my foundationless ambitions? Not necessarily. But I do know my critics, and the ones who have their BS-es have thinned out to a crowd of Barneys and Bessies who are in credit card debt over their heads. I'll race you to the good life, okay? Just give me a minute to blow-dry my hair. "Yep, our ol' pal, Metallica Lars. I, of course, didn't figure out who he was until after I sold him a ticket, so saying 'sue THIS, you buttfold' and then mooning him was out of the question. When he left, however, I turned the box mic up real loud and said 'Boy, I feel like downloading some free music!'" --Heidi 18:46 - 30 July, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||