Within arms reach
Jun. 23rd, 2003 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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rubberneck made me the icon. Does she know me or what?My father had one rule about my clothing when I was a teenager and that was that my skirts had to be fingertip length, meaning that the hem had to be as long as my fingertips. Seemed reasonable to me, and shy and self-conscious about my body in high school, it wasn't too much of an issue, especially as opaque black tights were all the rage, which wrapped you up like a sausage sack anyway.
But I always loved short skirts, and in college, had a wide array of them that danced just a fraction above that self-induced hemline challange. I even had one that could only be describe as a really wide belt (thank you Robert Parker for that description). As an adult, with a job - albeit a very laid back one, clothing requirement wise - I pretty much abandoned the miniskirt. There was no one to shock, and fashion changed, and I needed to be taken seriously, which didn't seem so important as an office assistant or a grad student and the short skirts and Bond girl boots were my, very late, rebellion. (That was unfortunately, part of the phase when I really wanted to be a Bond girl - probably going a long way towards describing my willingness to abandon archaeology. When all anyone loves you for is your mind, all you want to be is beautiful. When they start wanting just your body, all you want is to say goddamnit, I'm a hell of a lot smarter than you are. It's one of those eternal dilemnas for women. We want to be called beautiful, but it is such hollow praise).
So, anyway, the point of this. Somewhere between 24 and 28, I lost the unawareness needed to wear short skirts. I'm wearing my shortest dress today, and it does indeed cover the essentials, and I have a long sweater to wear if necessary, but there is a lot of me exposed. I'm 5'10 with long legs, and I don't look indecent, but I feel undressed. Not unprofessional, just undressed, and shy. And I don't understand that reaction. I'm more comfortable, if not happier, with my body than I ever have been. I wear belly dance costumes with padded bras and low cut belts and feel completely covered. I wear jeans cut low enough that I'm sure my father would have added a new clause to the clothing laws, but there is something about wearing this dress, maybe because I've had it for so long, maybe because it takes me back to who I was at 23, that makes me feel vulnerable. I want that ease that belongs to you at 23, of movement and self. You don't quite know who you are, which gives you the freedom to try on new personas, new identities, and maybe for me, knowing that I'm not that girl anymore, is what I'm missing more than the short skirts.
I eased back into my reality this weekend, even though staying up until 11 made me feel like I'd been backed over by a John Deere tractor. I went to ballet, went to belly dance rehearsal, even made it to Krav Maga, which was severely less than fun with a head full of snot. Everytime I got hit, it ricocheted up into my head making me whimper. I spent a lot of time alone in my house, which was a blessing, but has the tendency to produce in me that lost, too much in my head reaction to other human beings.
I don't want to say that I've missed out on the Harry Potter craze. I've read all the other books, will read the new one, but it isn't as urgent to me, I guess because I like that each book is a year, is self-contained, and it's nice to know there will be something fun this summer to look forward too.
I bought The Animatrix, which I really liked (truthfully enjoying it more than The Matrix Reloaded). The different Anime styles are incredible. Having been forced to watch much Cowboy BeBop - which I do like, it's just that I keep seeing the same eps over and over again - I was pleasantly surprised to really love the two shorts that Watanabe directed. I also bought Truly, Madly, Deeply because Virgin was having a sale and I just adore that movie. There's something about a ghost with a cold. I also watched Terms of Enderament, which yes, I love. Yes, I'm a sucker, and it makes me sob uncontrollably everytime. I love Larry McMurtry, so I feel ok about being attached to this movie.
I've been pretty unsocial this week, except for seeing my friend C. and her cousin. They are both from Alabama, and sometimes, I just have no idea what they're saying. C.'s accent gets substantially stronger when she's around other people from the south, and I find myself listening extra hard to distinguish vowels and consanants. C. can turn the accent on and off, somewhat at will, too, which cracks me up. She knows how to use it, giving people a little Southern girl charm, and then taunting them with it just a little more. Then when I go home, I find that the accent has transmuted itself to me. I open my mouth, and just make myself giggle.
There was no writing, but my house is clean and smells like Murphy's Oil Soap, and I've figured out what to do with the LATP AU. I think I'm going to chapter it out, posting as I go so that i can trace the plot out. I get really bogged down in detail and conversation, and even if I don't post it, making myself do it in chapters will force me to have a timeline and a deadline.
And finally, I retaped Infinite Possibilities because I've watched my copy too many times and the quality bites.
This ep aired at about the same time that my best friend and her husband were taking a vital step in their lives and leaving L.A. for a different existence. I felt alone, abandoned, and I attributed that feeling to the fact that I bawled throughout the end of this. I'd never cried at a TV show before. Oh, I'd gotten overemotional, overinvested, but never, ever cried.
Problem is, I cry every time. I know what's going to happen, seen it happen, doesn't matter. It just breaks me down because the whole thing is done so beautifully.
The set up is perfect, John and Aeryn getting closer, intimate in a way they havne't been before. Soft, quiet moments, reasonable talk of going to Earth. That moment when she says that she hasn't been thinking about him leaving reveals so much of Aeryn that she keeps under wraps, and John's pleased flippant reply, and you know they're doomed.
Everything is timed right, and you can see the intense transformations these characters have gone through, the grownups they've become. Aeryn controlling her temper, acting as a support system for John, his willingness to do the right thing because he wants to be a hero for her, and because he knows it's his payback. His tradeoff for the happiness, and maybe for what he's done, the destruction he's helped to wreak.
I love useful Rygel, and blind Crais, and that moment when Crais says that they aren't leaving, that they will stay. Furlow's betrayal was a surprise, but totally in character, and the Charrid's are a nasty new addition to the Scarran threat, and Rygel, oh Rygel, we often forget that you are ruthless as well as self-serving, but that you are also first and foremost a dominar, and are invested in your subjects and your empire.
I started crying when John first tells Aeryn that he's dying, just kept going all the way through. And it's not fair. You ache for the John left behind just as much as you do for these two because you know that he's going to be well and truly screwed. It's hard to compete with a hero, much less a ghost. And even knowing that there's another John, you still hate to see this one go, to watch Aeryn deal with his death with any kind of composure.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 12:23 pm (UTC)If it sounds callous, I can't help it and I do apologize, but as a fat girl (hell, I'm 30, at some point I suppose I've really got to start thinking of myself as a woman but that seems so false) it's nice to know that thin people have body issues, too. On a related note, my extremely smart, supremely confident friend confessed to me that she admires my ability to make friends and I realized I-anti-social, crabby, lives like a toad stool under a bush me-absolutely did not recognize this person she was talking about as me. I'm begining to get that feeling that the girl I was at fifteen has never left me and not in a good way. So, even though I don't understand, I understand what you mean about clothes and self-image completely.
The Animatrix didn't rock my world that much but I've always liked the idea of Anime more than the fact (Spirited Away et al notwithstanding. Truly, Madly, Deeply on the other hand, was the first movie I've ever seen that really made me understand what grief is like, not in a "I will avenge your spirit, comrade" or a 'they killed Bambi's mother' kind of way but grief as a tearing, visceral, living emotion-I found it was almost too much for me to watch.
On a related note, I feel the same way about the last scene in IP. Claudia Black really, really, really deserves some sort of reward just for that scene. She does so many different things with Aeryn that it is difficult to single out only one to praise, but my heart breaks ever time I hear Aeryn say "I'm very, very angry."
no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 12:25 pm (UTC)Hell yeah!
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Date: 2003-06-23 01:15 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-23 01:14 pm (UTC)Everyone has them, it's part of our psyche I think, not only because of media inspired concepts of beauty, but because it is something we see as being within our control -when that isn't always the case. At least that's my opinion. It doesn't sound callous, I feel the same way. I'm so much taller than most girls, and feel like a giant and feel irrationally angry when tinier girls complain about something making them look fat. But it's all internal, a reflection of our inner demons - to use a really corny phrase.
And I'm not all that thin, but I'm in healthy shape. When I was 127 pounds, which at 5'10 was as thin as I will ever be, I still hated my body. I don't now. I like my curves. I like the fact that I have an ass, and would like certain body parts to be more toned, but for the most part am happy.
When I have issues with myself, I also know that it is a signal of depression, other unhappiness. But that has been a long time, and much therapy, in coming.
I value my mind and my talents in a different way than I did at 16 when I hid behind them with arrogance and scorn, and just wanted to be beautiful. It does go back to those moments of being a teenager, the things you take in at that age that never really go away, as you said. And recognizing that the way people see you really is you, even when you still feel like the lost adolescent. I feel like this frequently, looking around saying, are you kidding? You must be mistaking me for someone else.
I love that take on Truly, Madly Deeply, the depth of feeling that she has, and how painful that choice is, to stay in your past, to move forward, and that it's not a simple choice at all.
And absolutely, I agree that the last scene in IP has that same quality. Aeryn's grief is so real, so tearing, and the way that CB holds herself in that scene just kills me, the strength that she displays for John, the anguish, and love and now I'm getting all weepy again, dammit.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 01:19 pm (UTC)Hmm, not much of an acronym though.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 01:45 pm (UTC)Scapers Weeping At Work Crazily? SWAWC?
Scapers Crying Irrationally At Work? SCIAW?
I have nothing more to add, because, guys, it's ditto on the fat and the grief.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 02:01 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-23 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 03:59 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-23 04:40 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-23 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 02:07 pm (UTC)Frell.
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Date: 2003-06-23 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 04:15 pm (UTC)coming to the party late
Date: 2003-06-24 08:13 am (UTC)re: body image I gave up a long time ago trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be, and some people may even say I never contorted into what I should be anyway! I am a tomboy through and through. Last time I wore a dress (unwillingly at that) was my 8th grade graduation and I am of the school that thinks if you want to make sure someone who doesn't like wearing dresses will continue to do so in respectful society, DON'T MAKE A FRELLING BIG DEAL ABOUT IT WHEN THE PERSON DOES IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! I did not participate in my high school graduation, which is a very beautiful ceremony and all with the dozen long stem red roses and floor length white gowns (and I don't mean graduation gowns, I mean GOWNS) because I refused to wear a dress. Good think I wasn't valedictorian, huh? That might have made a stand. (BTW, all girls' catholic high school, very traditional, 125 years of history, I wasn't going to mess with it).
My mom says I cried whenever they put me in a dress. I've been told I didn't stop crying at my christening until after they took the dress off me, and I was all of 3 weeks old at the time.
And until I actually went to school, I had absolutely no problem with body image... every summer, I played in my backyard in my underwear if it was too hot... I had no problem with it, my parents had no problem with it. Go to school, and the nuns tell little girls to dress properly (I hate plaid now). Argh.
And the only time I've been concerned about my weight was when it went up by 30 pounds over the course of 4 months; mostly due to steroid medication for asthma related problems - I was allergic to my new house! - but I've shed most of that weight; not all, but most of it.
I'm 5'9" (almost, if I stop slouching) and right now, ~165 pounds. When I was 190 pounds, nobody believed it. Apparently, I carry weight well. I lightest I've been since high school is 127 pounds, and that was after I got back from the Arctic the first time (Lost nearly 30 pounds in 8 weeks).
I wear men's clothing because it fits me better. I wear men's shoes because, frankly, they are wider and more comfortable. I do own linen suits, and yes, they are from the women's department. I can fit into a size 14, but I prefer a 16 so that there's 'room'. I hate clingy clothes, but I hate baggy stuff 'cause it gets in the way of the saws and drills and equipment i use on a daily basis.
Normal. Yup. Normal. Not anorexic-thin, not rolling over the tops of my jeans fat so that you'd notice... normal. I am healthy, I can bike ride 20 miles and not be winded, I can run short distances (I'm not built for running), I can play basketball for hours, I can rollerblade for hours if I wanted to. And it took me a while to think like that.
re: truly, madly,deeply ah, yes. you want grief, this movie is just superb. when I want a good cry, this is what I watch. I've been taping Farscape at night because, frankly, I missed most of season 3, caught it on the erstwhile tape from time to time, and I woke up just at the end of part 2 the other night, and I started bawling... but what gets me more is the goodbye scene in Bad Timing between John and his dad. Death I can deal with... goodbyes I cannot (and shit if I'm not tearing up right now thinking about it!)
It's a shame that Farscape doesn't get the recognition in main stream television that it deserves. I would but Ben Browder's death scene up against Jimmy Smits any day of the week and twice on Sunday, or Claudia Black's reaction against Allison Janney's -- crap, what scene did they play this year when she won best actress? not that I don't think she deserved it, because she did, but if it's the scene where she confronts the National Security Advisor at the end of "Women of Qumar", I still think Claudia Black wins hands down for the shear number of different emotions in a 3 minute time span and the way they come across the screen.
anyway...
ck