No, I am not planning on visiting the Bunny Ranch. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all. I'd just like to get into a vehicle, pack in a few things (a few changes of clothes, my laptop, a solar battery, my shotgun, a pistol, my sleeping bag, a decent radio with a NOAA weather setting, a couple of blankets and a few personal items) and just drive off. Oh, and a cell phone with a little battery-powered reserve power cell. Turned off, of course, but there if I want to contact someone. There's 'getting away from it all' and then, there's stupid.
Anyway, today I took Miss Cobra (long story on that name; it goes back to the mid-1970's and how everyone and his brother had a CB 'handle'. Bore you with that some other time.) to the doctor's office today; she had an appointment. Always glad to help Miss Cobra out; she's a family friend for as far back as I can remember, and one of the few reasons I wouldn't immolate this city, were I to have the chance.
Why am I bringing this up? Well, while sitting there and reading a Tom Clancy doorstop of a novel (thanks for that phrase, CINCGREEN!), I was slightly bored by the low level of conversation and cute girls in the area, and I drifted off...
Dream snippet time. I dreamed that I was back at the old house that I grew up in. (P.S. my old address growing up? 1313. That's a conversation starter, folks.) I'n walking down the hall of the second floor towards my parents room, when I hear a female voice coming out of the linen closet; as I get up close, I notice that it's Traylor Howard (the actress from Monk, on the USA Network) and she's on the phone with someone. She smiles at me, I nod and start to pass by when she holds hout her hand to me, I take it, and as she continues on with that conversation, a very interesting session of 'handsie' begins to ensue...
I tell you, I had no idea that holding hands could be so... arousing. Nothing more, nothing less, and I have no idea why I would have a dream about that actress. I mean, I certainly didn't miss an episode of Boston Common in its first season, back in 1995 on NBC; she was cute as a button, and I must admit I like that look...
As usual, this is the portion of the regularly-scheduled program in which I drop off the grid and start talking about things that I really have no real understanding of.
You guessed it in one. Women.
Why is it that a hell of a lot of guys (and a hell of a lot of the scandal sheets, internet sites, magazines, TV shows, etc. that the collective stream o'lemmings gravitates to as if by instinct) have this idea that once a woman hits a seemingly predetermined age, she's no longer attractive or sexually desirable (or more to the point, shouldn't present herself in this fashion) - and mre to the point, why to a hell of a lot of women buy into this crapshoot? Case in point - Miss Traylor. Hey - I like the pixie look. I like the fact that she's not 'a classic Hollywood beauty'. I like it that (as a friend would always say) 'that she's a cutie'? I certainly love the fact that she's actually having a real meal - a burger, some sort of salad and a slice of watermelon. (Although I REALLY... cannot... stand... watermelon. However, that's another story for another day.) I like the fact that she doesn't have breasts with the mass to possibly retain their own gravity and magnetic fields and atmosphere. I understand that some science schmuck mentioned long ago that there's a genetic thing about men being attracted to big breasts. I have no problem with that. I especially have no problem with when I think of the former CNBC anchor Liz Claman; during 2006 and 2007, I was able to gain some small idea of what a friend who was into economics and the finance sector said on occasion by watching Morning Call religiously. Of course, redheads are always a big draw for me, anyway...
Back on track. Back when I was a freshman in high school, I had an afterschool job cleaning rooms at my school. (Actual work for a kid. Not a bad idea.) The guy who I worked with was a Navy vet named Ken, and he would tell me stories and give me advice (like older guys should give the younger ones. It's because of him that I've always wanted to visit Australia). One of the things that he said that I've always remembered was about breasts: 'If it's more than a mouthful, it's a waste.' Sage advice.
I mention this because - in our twisted society - we have this perverse fascination with large breasts that (pardon the pun) cuts both ways; it's as if we want woman to have large breasts and act as if small-breasted women are somehow... deficent - and yet, we objectify large-breasted women at the cost of their intellectual capacity. Worse, regardless of bust size, once women reach that 'predetermined (and yet unspoken) age'... they're supposed to delete any overt sexuality that they may project and... what? disappear off the landscape in favor of the 'younger, hotter models'?
I'm surprised more women don't go temporarily insane... or, considering the mass numbers of women who submit to the myriad of options that cosmetic surgery affords (or at least consider seriously enough that they actively research their options), perhaps they are. Now, I'm not saying that cosmetic surgery is wrong, or that having large breasts is wrong. If you're a guy and that's what you prefer, knock yourself out and go for it - but please, remember (as Amy from About A Girl told her roommates) that there's usually a person attached to those breasts. If you're a woman, large- or small-breasted, please stop buying into the fallacy that somehow, on any level, your worth to men is directionally proportional to your bust size, your intellectual capacity is directly inverse to said bust size and that somehow, your own self-worth is in any way connected at all to that!
Of course, women are saying right about now, "Well, what the hell do YOU know about it? You're not in our shoes, you have no idea how it feels to have men staring at your chest as if you're some side-show freak because you have a bustline that stretches out sweaters, or they look at you and say, 'if you didn't have long hair, I wouldn't be able to tell that you were a girl!" You're right. I don't know - and I can't understand.
However, as I told a young woman long ago: "You're right. I don't know anything about you. All I know about you is what you let me see." Self-worth begins with you, people. If you're proud of who you are - as a whole - then that one part of your anatomy won't matter to you and the people whose opinions matter to you...and it certainly won't matter to the person who shares their life and their love with you. They care for you, and your body is a bonus. That being said, if you're happy with who you are and you simply want to do something to improve uupon yourself... then cosmetic surgery is a viable option. Why? Because now, it's simply you wanting to give yourself a new look so as to present yourself in what you feel is an even better manner - not you trying to gain confirmation of your own inner worth from others through changing your exterior. There is a difference.
Oh, yeah. If anyone out there knows where I can get a hold of one of those old-school exercise bikes - you know, the metal ones with the upward-curving handlebars and the nice, sturdy foot pedals, and at a reasonable price - let me know. We can all use a change of the exterior, and back in college, I really liked going over to the Student Rec Center every day and riding five miles or so on the bikes.
2 comments:
Three comments:
1. One of the few "great truths" to come out of the new-age-hippie-human-potential movement is that "if you hate your body, you hate yourself." How can you hate your body? You are your body!
Part of the problem has to be laid at the feet of...well...Christianity. This is not a bash on Christianity per se, but rather the mind/body dualism that gets its chief source of support from Christianity, with its spirit/body dualism. In Christianity, one has the "soul", and then one has this sinful sack of meat to which the soul is unfortunately attached, acting as an anchor and potentially dragging it down into hell.
We tend to view our bodies as something entirely separate from ourselves. Women damn this part or that part of their bodies, looking for social acceptance, thinking that if they can just get this giant flesh pot pie under control, things will be different.
2. I agree. Trying to gain conformation of your inner worth through changing your exterior is a madman's task, one that will never be completed. Anybody who would like you more because you adjusted yourself to someone else's standard of beauty -- individual or collective -- is a person who should be avoided at all costs. Oh yes, and burned with fire.
3. Shotgun? Pistol? NOLA radio? Either interstate travel is much more dangerous, or you're taking "Apocalyptic Daria" as holy scripture.
4. Best place to get an old-school exercise bike -- eBay. www.ebay.com, for all of your junk needs. Great place to browse.
On women's breasts: if things continue the way they're going, in about five years, young USian men will have no idea of what a normal mature female breast looks like, and I'm not kidding. Part of it is the ubiquity among pr0n—and I suppose now mainstream—actresses of boob jobs that distort the natural soft sac shape of the breast into a rigid hemisphere; the other part of it is the Victoria's Secret bra, which will distort the natural breast into such hemispheres.
On mind/body dualism: it's WRONG and EVIL but it's so deeply embedded in our culture, it may take hundreds of years before we rid ourselves of it. The smell test for mind/body dualism in discourse is this: any statement or argument that depends on the assumption the will or intellect is or can be totally free of physical influences carries the mind/body dualism 'cultural pathogen,' and the statement (and person making the statement) should be quarantined as if they were carrying typhoid.
Sorry to be so vehement, but as somebody who's been taking anti-depressants since the pre-Prozac days when those drugs were dangerous and couldn't be handed out like candy, I really and truly hate the injunction that the depressed just "need to get over it." Or, for that matter, that when people find themselves in really-o, truly-o objectively hard spots in their lives, that they can just overcome it. Not only are these statements cruel, they're deeply ignorant.
There are people with great powers of will and concentration, but they're as exceptional as great natural athletes, or natural singers. Expecting that everyone—especially those under the stress of bad circumstances—to live up to their abilities is like expecting everyone to be able to...hell, I don't know sports, so fill in the blank here. You know what I'm getting at.
I could go on and on, but this comment is already tl;dr, so I'll conclude with this: if somebody accuses you of using something—anything—as a crutch when it could be done with will power, they're essentially asking you to unbalance the playing field in their favor. The important thing is what you need to get done what you want. 'Nuff said.
Post a Comment