February142011

Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

I really hate Valentines day.
I hate the way single people are made to feel inferior. I hate the way that attached people are mocked and resented by single people. I hate how people are expected to buy meaningless, overpriced things for their friends and lovers, and how women are expected to expect such offerings. I hate the ugly sad-eyed stuffed animals wrapped in cellophane. I hate cheap chocolate in ugly boxes. I hate the sickly-sweet artificiality of the whole holiday, and I hate the us-versus-them competition between those in relationships, and those not in relationships.
I only like those little conversation hearts. Those are delicious.
Until 2009, I ended up single for every Valentine’s day since I had been old enough to date. As I’m sure everyone knows, if you have no-one showering you with stupid things on Valentine’s day, it is implied that the whole world is judging you for your failure. Especially if you are a woman, the implication is that to be without a Valentine, is to be waiting in line to be a spinster, and somehow less of a woman.
Now that I am in a stable, happy relationship, I hate Valentine’s day more than I ever did when I was alone.
I feel as though my relationship is being indirectly thrown in the faces of everyone who doesn’t have what I have and as a result, somehow cheapened. Not to me, not to Michael, of course, but to the rest of the world.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of the holiday is beautiful. The concept of a day to celebrate love is absolutely lovely, but this massive advertising-driven guilt-trip is disgusting, and tacky. If you love someone, just love them. You don’t need to spend a fortune on tacky lingerie, heart-shaped food in crowded restaurants, chocolate with suspicious fillings, and diamonds to somehow prove your affection; it’s revolting to suggest that people need these artificial trappings and that without them there is no love.
Really, though, I hate the people who say that Valentine’s Day is their favorite holiday most of all. Valentine’s day is like the RealDoll of holidays. How can you love something made of plastic and silicone?

Love Valentine's Day Things I Wrote 

February222011

This morning, while trying to take a picture of how badly my faux-bangs turned out today, I realized that I, like tehvee, have ‘crazy eyes’. She mentioned her own crazy eyes here, and it sort of made me think, do I too have crazy eyes? Is that why people often use the word ‘creepy’ or ‘scary’ to describe me, even though I am no such thing? I stared at my eyes in the mirror for a really long time trying to figure it out, because I am very vain. I decided that no, my eyes could not be crazy. Then I innocently took a picture. I understood that I had been wrong. I tried to fix it, by softening the craziness with black and white, so that I looked like a time traveller from the 1940s. Maybe no-one would notice if they thought that the photograph was old, and therefore cooler than it is.
Black and white seemed to only make the craziness of my eyes more obvious. When you cannot save yourself with black and white, all is truly lost.
I am not sure how I feel about this new knowledge. Have people been noticing my crazy eyes all along? Is that why the only people who tell me that my eyes are pretty are other people (such as Michael) who have been accused of having crazy eyes? Is that why crackheads invariably decide that I am the person, out of an entire busload of people, who they should talk to?
Has everyone in the world who is not me known that I have crazy eyes and been laughing at me because I thought I had normal eyes? 

Crazy Eyes Eyes Life Me Scary Things I Wrote 

February242011

It’s times like these…

…that I realize that although I dress more conservatively than I once did, I still do not dress in a manner that invites employment opportunities. Dressing like a time traveller from 1942 can be just as off-putting as dressing like Lisbeth Salander.

Tomorrow I am going to apply at an adult bookstore that looks from the outside to be rather sleazy, and I realized that your average purveyor of adult materials would not want to hire someone who dresses the way I do every day. So I have to dress like a normal person, while still hinting at the fact that most of my wardrobe is almost as old as my grandmother.

How I am going to do this, I have not yet figured out. I am thinking pencil skirt with tank top and leather jacket. Sort of a ‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’ aesthetic.

Employment Life Me Off-putting Attire Vintage Things I Wrote 

March172011

I love the 1940s, especially the war years.
I love the clothes, the hair, the movies, the music. As aesthetically beautiful as the decade was, what I love most are the ordinary women of the time. The women who got factory jobs, despite the fact that aside from retail or secretarial work, many of them hadn’t worked a day in their lives. The women who sold war bonds. The women who planted and tended victory gardens. The women who made the best of the strict rations imposed by the war effort. The women who often raised very young children on their own. The women who lived every day wondering if their men were alive or dead. The women who somehow looked amazing despite everything they had to manage on their own.
These women embody the things that I aspire to be. 

1940s Things I Wrote 

April202011
This, unfortunately, is pretty much my life most of the time.At least I have gotten to a point where I recognize it, and understand how destructive this thought pattern is.There is so much cognitive dissonance in my attitude towards myself and my body. Intellectually I know that I am not only attractive, but also on the thin side, if not downright skinny. Sure, I am more of an hourglass than a stick, but I am more of an elongated egg-timer hourglass than the squat witch’s hourglass from The Wizard of Oz.I understand these things, and I understand that starvation-induced bones are not as beautiful as the lush curves of the women whose bodies I admire, and aspire to resemble. I want to look more like Rita Hayworth, Christina Hendricks, or Marilyn Monroe than Kate Moss or Gemma Ward, and yet when I begin to approximate their shapes, I look in the mirror, and all I see is fat, fat, fat.I see rolls where there are the shapes of bones, and bulges where there is just a flat expanse of skin. I do not want to see this. I want to see reality, but for some reason I cannot.Maybe one day. 

This, unfortunately, is pretty much my life most of the time.
At least I have gotten to a point where I recognize it, and understand how destructive this thought pattern is.
There is so much cognitive dissonance in my attitude towards myself and my body. Intellectually I know that I am not only attractive, but also on the thin side, if not downright skinny. Sure, I am more of an hourglass than a stick, but I am more of an elongated egg-timer hourglass than the squat witch’s hourglass from The Wizard of Oz.
I understand these things, and I understand that starvation-induced bones are not as beautiful as the lush curves of the women whose bodies I admire, and aspire to resemble. I want to look more like Rita Hayworth, Christina Hendricks, or Marilyn Monroe than Kate Moss or Gemma Ward, and yet when I begin to approximate their shapes, I look in the mirror, and all I see is fat, fat, fat.
I see rolls where there are the shapes of bones, and bulges where there is just a flat expanse of skin. I do not want to see this. I want to see reality, but for some reason I cannot.
Maybe one day. 

(Source: o-cean-sprayy, via xanthoma)

Anorexia GIF Me Things I Wrote 

April292011

I saw a bunny today.

It was a little white bunny with black and brown spots. It wasn’t some wild bunny who belongs outside. No, this was a bunny from a store. It had big black eyes, wide with the perpetual anticipation of fear, the way all young bunnies are. It was eating a dandelion plant in some of the stubby grass between the street and the sidewalk. There, in my ugly, run-down ghetto neighborhood, was this perfect gem of cute fluffiness.
      I was so struck by the cuteness of this little animal that it took me a moment to realize that this was not right and that this rabbit did not belong there, or really outside at all. Once I did, I sprang, or rather crept into action. I would rescue the rabbit, stockings be damned. Long story short, I didn’t manage to rescue it. The poor thing, unaware of the fact that I was trying to help it, hopped through the bars of a wrought iron fence, and out of my reach. I went on my way to school with a heavy heart, but perfectly intact stockings.
      What troubles me most about this story is not that I was unable to rescue the bunny, but that it was outside in the first place. I doubt it was a beloved pet that somehow made its way outdoors. More than likely, that poor helpless little creature was an Easter gift for one of the loud, spoiled, fat children of my neighborhood. One of their fat mothers bought it, thinking only that it was cute and soft, and not that it required food, attention, and a clean cage, and then discarded it when it proved itself to be more than a stuffed toy.
      It makes me sad and angry that people are so thoughtless and callous as to completely fail to consider that owning any animal, whether it be a rabbit, a cat, a dog, or even a goldfish, is a great responsibility. Taking that little life into your home is not something that should be done heedlessly, and the fact that every day people take animals home on nothing but a whim, unwilling, and unprepared to care for them, enrages me.
      I wish there was a way to enforce the licensing of pet owners. Adopting a pet and adopting a child should not be so different. People should not be allowed to take responsibility of any life without first being proven able to care for it.

The good news is that the good people of Red Door were extremely helpful concerning my inquiries about what to do in the event that I see that bunny, or any other bunny again, and have given me two rabbit rescue numbers to call. Even if the rabbit isn’t found, I think I may volunteer there over the summer.

Bunnies Misanthropy PSA Rants Red Door Sad Things I Wrote 

May52011
Everyone is all up in arms about this article, and to an extent I think they are correct to be so. The entire tone is absolutely disgusting and offensive, and it is clear that the people at FHM need to open their minds more than a bit, and stop freaking out because they may have just found a very pretty man attractive and they are now questioning their sexuality.I can agree with them on one point, though. While I do think that it is great that the fashion industry is so accepting of Andrej’s gender blurring, it’s very disturbing to me that he is considered to be the next big thing in women’s fashion. Don’t get me wrong, he is nothing if not beautiful. I hardly think that he should be banned from the fashion industry completely, quite the opposite in fact. I don’t even think that he should model only men’s clothes. He is a more than competent model, and should be allowed to model whatever he and his agency want him to. What bothers me is the fact that it seems more likely that the industry’s acceptance and embracing of him has more to do with moving the industry from ‘girls who look dangerously boyish to just boys who look like girls’ than some great, magnanimous open-mindedness and acceptance. Granted I imagine that my complaint with these ‘dangerously boyish’ girls is a bit different from FHM’s, but it is still a concern of mine.The fashion industry has never been one to accept a large range of body types, and as a woman with an extremely feminine body, the current fashion climate bothers me. I would have no problem with Andrej’s popularity if it didn’t seem symptomatic of a larger disregard for women who are shaped the way most women are, but it does. Androgyny is great, and it should be embraced and celebrated but if it is all you have, that’s a problem.It is annoying at best, and distressing at worst that the few contemporary garments I do own have had to be taken in at the waist or let out at the hips before they fit properly, and that it is often difficult for me to find shirts that actually fit my (not especially large) breasts. One of the many reasons I wear vintage is because in the first half of the 20th century clothing was not made for women without a single curve to their name. Clothing that is older than my mother is made for women who are shaped the way I am. Even in the 1920s, the so-called boyish figure was positively curvaceous compared to your average model of today.I in no way mean to denigrate the women in the world who are built like boys, I understand that it is a perfectly natural and often beautiful body type. People come in all sorts of shapes, and so long as they fit within the bounds of personal health, they should all be accepted. However it is not the norm, and while everyone deserves to be able to find, without too much ado, clothing that fits them properly, the majority of ladies are closer to being hourglass shaped than they are rectangle shaped and the clothing that is manufactured for us should reflect that.I would like to live in a world where the popularity of Andrej, or someone as androgynous as he is, was not a cause for concern but the fact is that we don’t. A mole can be an attractive and wonderful thing, but if it is caused by cancer it becomes another matter entirely. Of course the fashion industry, and the beauty standard it reflects will always have a narrower view of what is attractive and desirable than what occurs in people, but would it really be so very hard for it to reflect something that was more often healthy and attainable?

Everyone is all up in arms about this article, and to an extent I think they are correct to be so. The entire tone is absolutely disgusting and offensive, and it is clear that the people at FHM need to open their minds more than a bit, and stop freaking out because they may have just found a very pretty man attractive and they are now questioning their sexuality.
I can agree with them on one point, though. While I do think that it is great that the fashion industry is so accepting of Andrej’s gender blurring, it’s very disturbing to me that he is considered to be the next big thing in women’s fashion. Don’t get me wrong, he is nothing if not beautiful. I hardly think that he should be banned from the fashion industry completely, quite the opposite in fact. I don’t even think that he should model only men’s clothes. He is a more than competent model, and should be allowed to model whatever he and his agency want him to. What bothers me is the fact that it seems more likely that the industry’s acceptance and embracing of him has more to do with moving the industry from ‘girls who look dangerously boyish to just boys who look like girls’ than some great, magnanimous open-mindedness and acceptance. Granted I imagine that my complaint with these ‘dangerously boyish’ girls is a bit different from FHM’s, but it is still a concern of mine.
The fashion industry has never been one to accept a large range of body types, and as a woman with an extremely feminine body, the current fashion climate bothers me. I would have no problem with Andrej’s popularity if it didn’t seem symptomatic of a larger disregard for women who are shaped the way most women are, but it does. Androgyny is great, and it should be embraced and celebrated but if it is all you have, that’s a problem.
It is annoying at best, and distressing at worst that the few contemporary garments I do own have had to be taken in at the waist or let out at the hips before they fit properly, and that it is often difficult for me to find shirts that actually fit my (not especially large) breasts. One of the many reasons I wear vintage is because in the first half of the 20th century clothing was not made for women without a single curve to their name. Clothing that is older than my mother is made for women who are shaped the way I am. Even in the 1920s, the so-called boyish figure was positively curvaceous compared to your average model of today.
I in no way mean to denigrate the women in the world who are built like boys, I understand that it is a perfectly natural and often beautiful body type. People come in all sorts of shapes, and so long as they fit within the bounds of personal health, they should all be accepted. However it is not the norm, and while everyone deserves to be able to find, without too much ado, clothing that fits them properly, the majority of ladies are closer to being hourglass shaped than they are rectangle shaped and the clothing that is manufactured for us should reflect that.
I would like to live in a world where the popularity of Andrej, or someone as androgynous as he is, was not a cause for concern but the fact is that we don’t. A mole can be an attractive and wonderful thing, but if it is caused by cancer it becomes another matter entirely. Of course the fashion industry, and the beauty standard it reflects will always have a narrower view of what is attractive and desirable than what occurs in people, but would it really be so very hard for it to reflect something that was more often healthy and attainable?

Andrej Pejic FHM Prejudice Rants Sad Things I Wrote 

May82011

When I buy ruined old dresses and sew them up to be almost, if not just as, good as new I feel so proud. It’s as if I am bringing history back to life when it would have been forgotten in an attic, or a thrift store or a landfill.
The dress I am fixing now is from the 1940s, as are most of my clothes. It looks like it actually went through WWII, instead of just existing around the same time. The underarms are yellow, and there are a hundred thousand tiny splits in the fabric. It is brightly printed, and seems to be handmade.
I wonder about the girl who made it. She was probably tall, although not quite as tall as I am. Unless someone wore it after her, she was very sweaty, at least in the summer. I wonder if she was pretty, or funny, or smart, or just boring. If she really did make the dress herself, she was probably not very rich. I wonder if she was a nice girl, or the town slut. What exactly made a girl slutty back then? I wonder if she was creative, or artistically inclined. I wonder if she is still alive, and how the course of her life went. She would have lived through so many wars, what must that have been like?
I wonder if we would get along, or if she would be put off by my tattoos and colorful language.

Dress Speculation Vintage Clothing Things I Wrote 

9PM

Reasons Why I Would Not Want To Live in the 1940s

-Racism
-WWII
-Rationing
-Uncomfortable shoes
-No Internet
-Homophobia 
-Lack of tattoo acceptance
-Restrictive social codes
-Slow travel
-Weird food 

1940s Me Things I Wrote Lists 

9PM

Reasons Why I Would Like To Live In the 1940s

-Pretty dresses
-Manners
-Social standards
-Nice furniture
-Socially acceptable smoking
-Good movies
-Joan Crawford (see Good Movies)
-Good music
-Interesting advertising

1940s Me Things I Wrote Lists 

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