2004-09-17 - 10:01 a.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Edelweiss"

Tuesday, September 14

OK, so, I said in a previous entry that I no longer wear clothes that are uncomfortable in order to look good. And yet today I am contemplating learning to wear higher heels. Fortunately it's supposedly a woman's prerogative to change her mind, and I was talking about tight-in-the waist jeans mostly anyway. The whole low-rider trend and spandex basically killed what little tolerance I had for clothes pressing on my belly. ("I'm comin' out!") But, as usual, I digress.

At the moment, I can walk comfortably in about a 1-3/4 inch heel. If it's a chunky heel, I can walk a mile in it. The higher you get above that, the harder it gets to walk, and by 3 inches I'm in pain and about to topple over just walking across the room. And yet I see women walking around in Center City wearing them with their pantsuits, walking to work. (The rest of the women are still wearing their Reeboks with white socks, remember that trend from the EIGHTIES!?)

Is there some kind of knack to wearing 3-inch heels that I don't know about? Can I get used to it? Or are these women just torturing themselves? I love the look of higher heels but they are NOT easy to wear. Also remember I have small feet (size 6), so the hypotenuse of my foot to the short leg of the heel is probably at a different angle than for women with longer feet.

Unfortunately, a lot of the shoes I really like (like these) have a 3-inch heel. I'd like to be able to wear 3-inch heels to go to meetings in DC, but the thought of all the walking I do in train and Metro stations and city sidewalks getting to and from a given meeting adds up to quite a bit of walking, and I don't see that happening in 3-inch heels. And I'm not going to change shoes at the meeting because my feet will be hidden under the desk and kicked off anyway.

Also, those of you who are shoe freaks: Are there certain designers or brands that actually make a 3-inch heel more comfortable than others? Better padding in the sole, perhaps? Aerosoles is so proud of their flexible sole, but their sole padding often leaves something to be desired. Also, I tried on a pair of $245 Italian shoes the other day on a whim and they had NO padding. Like I'm going to pay $250 for that!

I don't know if I like the round-toe shoes (I think they make my already-small feet look a little TOO small), but these shoes are SO FRICKIN' CUTE. Nordstrom was torturing me with them on their front page for days. If they are comfortable (the heel is supposedly only 2.25 inches) I might splurge and get those and then wear them every day whether they go with the outfit or not.

Thursday, September 16

Awhile back, Tupelo linked to a horrifying picture at a site called Awful Plastic Surgery. This site has a sister site called Good Plastic Surgery. Once I found them, I had to sit there and go through both archives and look at the before-and-after pictures. While I am amused by some of the really bad surgery, mostly I am shocked and horrified by how few natural faces there are in show business, even among the youngest ones. I had no idea. To see what I mean, check out:

Eliza Dushku (wasn't she pretty enough before?!)
Jessica Simpson (EYE LIFT?!)
Jennifer Lopez (LIP REDUCTION!? see more here)

InStyle magazine has a feature wherein they show pictures of how a celebrity's look has changed over the years. They talk about hair and makeup changes, but what's the most startling is the plastic surgery. Jennifer Lopez and Halle Berry are nearly unrecognizeable in early photos because they've done so much to slim down and angularize their features.

It's depressing. My gut reaction is to strongly dislike it. I don't like the idea of hacking away at somebody's face and body to make them "more beautiful". At the same time, I do things to myself that make me feel more attractive, such as perming my hair, tweezing, and wearing makeup, so where do you draw the line? It must be very tempting to be able to sculpt your body any way you want it -- for everything I like about my body, there's another thing I'd like to trade for something else. So I can't fault anyone who wants to change something they dislike.

Maybe part of the reason I dislike it is because the idea of what's beautiful is so narrow-minded. There's a certain uniformity to the look of faces who've had plastic surgery. And yet I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of attractive people in my lifetime whose features look nothing like those of movie stars. Even things like teeth can be charming when they're not perfect -- there are certain tooth "imperfections" (a crooked tooth on the side in front, even teeth that slant slightly backward) that I actually find attractive. I think a bump on the nose is cute. I don't think noses need to be so damn skinny and pointy. Sometimes I dislike that my mouth is so tiny -- I love full lips -- but there are some people who think it's adorable. So if everybody starts reconfiguring their faces to meet this uniform standard, won't we lose some of those little quirks that can be so uniquely attractive?

I guess I'm just a fan of naturalness. I think most women are just as beautiful without makeup -- makeup only makes them look different, more formal maybe. I find both naturally thin women and naturally plump women to be pleasing in their own ways. I like little butts and big butts, and same for boobies. I like tall men with broad shoulders and I like skinny guys. I like men with rugged faces and I like pretty boys. I like men with leg and chest hair and men without leg and chest hair. It's all good!

Friday, September 17

Forgot to mention one of the new noises I can hear.

I was in the backyard watering plants and disturbed a bumblebee, who hovered briefly in front of my face. As if that wasn't freaky enough in itself (I don't need a bee sting on my nose), I was really freaked to discover that it was making a noise that I could hear. I don't think I've ever heard that from an actual bee, or at least not since I was a little kid. I've only heard human-voiced imitations of bees buzzing, or maybe the exaggerated sound in a movie, but nothing from an actual bee.

That is a FREAKY NOISE! It sounds almost mechanical! It's FREAKY!

I had to go back in the house and ask Poindexter, "Do bees really sound like zzzzzzz? Is the way people imitate it pretty close to the way it actually sounds?" He grinned and said yes.

Pretty nifty.

I still have a journal I kept in first grade, for school. It's pretty funny. I would write stuff, occasionally asking questions, and the teacher would respond. She has that utterly perfect printing that first grade teachers tend to have.

I see myself talking like a little kid does, and apparently too excited to bother with proper spacing and alignment, so it turns out like some kind of odd free verse:

Friday March
16 1979

Guess what! Do you
know what?
Well When I
Was At grandma's
on friday Do you

know Where I went?
To alntic ocen!
And I felt how

Cold the water
was. Brrr.
Itwas
cold! And I climbed
big rocks!

My memories of school up until about 8th grade were that it lacked something in the way of challenge, and the journal certainly reflects that. I remember we would get worksheets ("dittos", remember those?) every day that had the same basic framework: Fill in the letter, fill in the word, circle the picture that has the sound in it, whatever. Each sheet was for a different letter, but the work was the same, and since I'd been reading for over two years at this point, it was extremely tedious for me (teacher's responses in italics):

Why do we have to do the same thing all the time for morning work?
We don't.
Yes we do! You give us dittos the same but Different writing and stuff like that!
Did you like the questions today? You did very nice work.

Sure, sure, try to distract me. Never mind that I'm not learning anything; I'm doing very nice busywork.

And this, from when we were studying Japan and learning our Japanese numbers:

Why aren't we doing our Japanese eqtions like ichi+ichi = ni?
We will.

Clearly I am just begging to be challenged here. We never did do Japanese equations. If I have an Oops (surprise baby), it is SO getting homeschooled.

Also entertaining for me to see was that my insistence on knowing why, the reasons people do things, was apparent very early on. Also apparent was other people's reluctance to tell me the reasons, either because they don't know or don't feel like elaborating:

Mrs. [Teacher], Why Did you have to take Mr. [Principal]'s place?
Because of a special program we were participating in.
But Why Did "you" have to be it?
Because he wanted "me" to be it.

(I was having trouble understanding how to express emphasis in print. :))

I remember being frustrated with her answer because it didn't explain a goddamn thing. WHY did he want "her" to be it, as opposed to someone else? I guess I'll never know.

And finally, I'll leave you with my poem, which gave Poindexter a coughing fit:

Come home tonight,
for your chicken delight,
Come home in a hurry,
and don't you worry,
just eat your delight
and have a good night.

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