RAWR!

Confessions #14: Throwback

Last night I dug up and screened for Mike a video I made in the fall of 1999. It was for an advanced precipitorial class--I was taking it as a junior and wanted to impress my prof (most of the other students were, I felt, bah-rilliant seniors). So instead of a lame paper about the perceptions of time, I made a lame VHS about the perceptions of time.

Anyway, what astonished me while watching it was not how young me and my friends looked, nor how I thought this terribly edited effort was an okay thing to turn in for a grade, nor how I seemed to be holding my breath the entire time I was speaking on camera.

No, what astonished me, I confess, was:

1. it's so plainly obvious to Now Me that a few of the people I interviewed in the video didn't really like me. Their body language and tone and impatience. I don't think Then Me realized, though, or else Then Me wouldn't have interviewed them. Then Me was very sensitive!

2. And also: the realization that while I'm interested in getting back to "hot" eventually, I'm probably more interested in getting back to 90s-hot. Not 2010s-hot.

Even as I work on making my body happy and healthy, as I grow out my hair, as I hope to re-build a cute wardrobe, as I try to take more time getting ready every day...I just don't want to be put-together and attractive by today's standards. They're too strict and too product-dependent, and I don't like wearing knee boots or leggings, and I can't probably can't pull off black frames, and my calves will never look like they've done a moment of hot yoga, and whatever.

I do look forward to being able to walk into a Goodwill and find a nerdy t-shirt that actually fits me. I want plaids and button-downs and wide-legged jeans and hoodies; I want lip gloss and fluffy hair; I want to shave my legs regularly but never feel like I have to shave my pubes; I want to use regular ole concealer, not wonder-mineral-fancy-paste. It's not that I don't want to look my age--I'm simply looking forward to cultivating my own style again and am guessing it won't be a very trendy style.

 

Yep, pretty much want a look which somehow combines all these outfits. Maybe minus the mini-skirts.

 

Confessions #13: Shame Stew

Oh, just some stuff I feel shameful about.

1. I want a wedding so much. Please oh please oh please. I haven't been dreaming about My Wedding as constantly as I was, say, a year ago, but there's plenty of wedding feeds on my Pinterest, and I've still got an unarchived Google doc stuffed with ideas/me-wants.

I want a big wedding, too, with everyone I love and really like there, and I want it to be super-fun, and I want it there to be a fancy taco bar, and I want a Beatles cover band AND a deejay, and it should be in Oak Park, I think, so does that mean the Cheney Mansion? OOOOh, teeHEE, wouldn't it be fun to have a signature punch in a pretty vintage bowl, and...

...WHAHHHHHHHHHHHH, I'll never be able to pay for the wedding I want! It's not fair!!!! I'll be 40 before I can pay for a third of the wedding I want. Also, okay fine, I'm not engaged or anything. But if I was, I'd want an EMERALD, Art Deco-y ring, and first thing's first, I want to design the invites myself, and could I get Mike to wear, like, a really sexy navy suit, but wait...

...SNIFFFFFF, what if I saved for a wahillion years and could invite everyone I wanted but then a bunch of those people didn't even come because they were busy that weekend or didn't like me quite enough to come, or thought my partnership wasn't really worth celebrating because it's a lovely, very promising partnership but we're both divorced and that's kinda boring, and even the WEDDING OF MY DREAMS would seem lame to them? Ooo, maybe I should think about emeralds and lilac centerpieces some more!

Ahem.

2. If I call a customer service hotline and the person who answers sounds dumb or bored, I hang up and call back immediately, knowing I'll probably get someone else.

3. Okay, gulp...I admit: I also hang up if they've got a thick Southern accent.

4. I don't think I've ever bought an actual lotto ticket, but I've played at least 300 scratch tickets in my life. Like a rube.

5. And, finally, whenever I want to shame myself--when I'm complaining about some sucky colleague to a sweet, unsucky colleague, when someone's wearing cute shoes I can't afford [this month], when I despair at having to mop the salt-mudded entryway again--I think these exact thoughts every time:

Within a three-short-mile-radius of your own address, there are people living lives you can't conceive of. With homes so impoverished you wouldn't want to step foot inside. You'd be alarmed, you'd be grossed out, you'd be filled with pity. And that pity is extra-shitty because it's white guilt, useless; you've done pathetically little to promote and push real social change, even counting your college convictions and poster-making. And these homes you'd find so miersable are within walking distance, never mind [as you practically don't] entire countries ravaged by famine and war. So shut. the. fuck. up, Rory

 

Confessions #12: Meow

I honestly believe my cats are better than yours. (And that Dave could be an internet star if I had the time to manage his career.)

Confessions #11: Nice

There's a celebrity in Abi's choir--a 15-year-old girl whose been famous since middle school for her brilliant-beyond-her-years blog (and now, for her media empire). I recently asked Abs whether she considered this teenage sleb a pal, since they saw each other every day and whatnot. Abs replied that, nope, the girl wasn't very nice at all, at least not to her. "She won't even say hi to me--I sit right behind her. Come on."

I encouraged my sister to look at it from the perspective of the other girl, who must have so many people wanting a piece of her right now. I pointed out that she'd been friendly when Abi was new, which was kind. We joked about what insane outfit Abi could wear to impress her famous classmate into converation. A nice bit of casual parenting there, no?

But I confess that I didn't share my immediate thoughts:

 I should totally blog about that famous chick being a bitch!

Um, did you just think that? How old are you?

Whatever--there's nothing more irritating than a prodigy who just keeps up the prodigy-ing, am I right?

Rory! You don't mean "more irritating." You mean "more intimdiating." Because you're just jealous.

Nuh-uh! Also, that one time at that choir concert the song her small vocal group did kinda blew.

Jesus, Rory!

The only thing more amazing than a child who can manage to act like an adult is an adult who can do the same.

Confessions #10: Three Bags Full

I now have three distinct bloggy blogs.

This one.

One to celebrate the amazing/amazingly stupid things I say whenever I smoke.

And a secret one I just started yesterday.

 

 

Confessions #9: Bundle

One of my favorite let's-go-ahead-and-open-the-second-bottle parlor games is to challenge friends to come up with three adjectives they would most like to have attached to themselves. In other words: if you could hand-pick the three virtues you're best known for, what would they be?

But [probably] no fair just rattling off "rich, sexy, brilliant" or something--the three adjectives should be attributes you're fairly confident you do possess, at least at your best.

 

 

I confess mine would be:

• witty
• leonine
• competent

(It's cheating a smidge because I mean "leonine" as a bundle of other awesome adjectives--confident, cool, badass, majestically maned--but hey, that's just me being witty and competent at playing my own parlor game.)

Confess yours!

 

Confessions #8: Good Intelligence

The very best thing about Abi and Joe moving in (the best thing for me, I mean) is that it has dismantled one of my suckiest, longest-held, trickiest self-doubts. I've always known I didn't want to give birth or raise my own biological children, for lots and lots of reasons--the big baddy reason, though, was that I was wholly uncertain I'd be a decent mother.

But now I know: I'd be a totally decent mother! Maybe not Mother of the Year, but definitely Mother of the Day sometimes. 

*    *    *    *    *
Because a non-Post Secrets blog cannot live on confessions alone, here's some slice-o-life of our afternoon. [Typepad is being a turd today, so I had to skip over to FB.]

Confessions #7: Right Now

Sorry for skipping a day—I’d started this post, hadn’t gotten a chance to finish it, and didn’t feel like starting and/or finishing anything else. So I hereby declare that it was always going to be a 28-confessions-in-30-odd-days thing.

Oh, was it more like two days? Like I said.

My confession is that right now I am a total fatty. Got all the real fat girl problems. And it is “girl,” not woman, because fat makes you immature and lame.

I’m won’t reveal the number of pounds I’m packing but mostly because I think you’d feel a distinct pang or two of pity, and I don’t want to give you pangs. It’s more pounds than I ever thought it’d be. I’m heavier than I ever imagined.

Well, no…I’ve got a pretty good imagination.

Real fat girl. Surely you’ve noticed. Several times in the last few months someone’s pointed out how fat someone else has gotten, how it’s aged or avenged or conquered someone else, and then there’s a half-second of awkwardness when everyone realizes I’m actually probably bigger than that poor soul.

I am the elephant in the room.

The double chin is constant—no angle or jutting can hide it--and if I’m not careful (Christ, I’m usually not careful), it squishes into a triple.

I can’t buy jeans in most departments or most stores. I have to order them online. Zappos sells “Levis” in all sizes and washes but someone can’t seem to accept that Fat Girls might want the same friendly, straight-forward, cotton denim others enjoy. All jeans in my size come in this sickly, stretchy, poly-fabric which seems to delight in soaking up sweat and then smelling weird. When I walk to work, my knees sweat now, and then my jean-knees smell. I mean, obviously, I should just stop ordering fake Levis from Zappos. Mostly I wear yoga pants now, whenever I can get away with it—and often when I can’t. Yoga pants are black and forgiving and not quite pajamas. You can tell they’re not quite pajamas because you can put an iPhone in the pocket and it won’t sag them.

Becoming a Fat Girl has been scary. No, worse: horrifying. I think about my fatness at least a hundred times a day. I think about it more than I think about anything else. Imagine if the thing you thought about most was horrifying, and humiliating. (Well, maybe it is, and I'm sorry. We should hang out more! Feel free to bring snacks.)

My ass still fits into theatre and plane seats. See, even my relief is humiliating. Sex is still fun and satisfying and my relief about that is humiliating, too. I usually like my hands a lot but even they've gotten that Fat Girl look now. You know what I mean.

Right now, I realize this confession is overwrought and probably not a lot of fun to read. I'm pushing on, though, because I don't want to waste all this honesty. Honesty is hard work!

Don’t write me kindly and discretely and offer advice or encouragement. Please. I know how to lose weight. I’ve done it before, with so many different methods. I know about paleo and weight-lifting and WW and small plates and zones and intuitive eating and counseling and diet buddies and planning and beans and daily practice and hydration and recording and reflection. I know how to do it. I just don’t know how to make (or let) myself do it right now.

Right now I’m a Fat Girl. A Fat Girl can handle anything--pretty well, actually--except getting un-fat.

I have this feeling: that this time, if I’m going to get to my healthy weight and stay there, I have to do it the hard way. By loving my body when it’s still horrifying. Stop loathing myself first and then heal, return, shrink. Make it stick that way. 32-going-on-33 feels like my last chance, too, but maybe not. Probably not. After all: the longest, most fucked-up, most mean, most important relationship I’ve ever had has been with my body. I'm almost ready to accept that we can’t ever break up.

Confessions #6: Faster AND Eco-Friendly

I pee in the shower.

I mean, not when I'm not already planning on taking a shower. But if I've got to do both, I do them at the same time.

Confessions #5: Hi Leela

I started blogging in early 2002--whoopie pie, this month marks a proper anniversary! I've been posting at this particular site for two years (as of January 8, to be even more particular). Though I did print out some of my living-in-London entries, the first four incarnations of RAWR have almost entirely evaporated.

Which bums me out. It would be so satisfying and so fun to have had just one blog this whole time, with a glorious, decade's worth of archives. To have had 22-year-old, 23-year-old, 24-year-old, 25-year-old, 26-year-old, 27-year-old, 28-year-old, 29-year-old, 30-year-old, 31-year-old, and 32-year-old Rory all contributing.

It is un-everything-good to be too pleased with yourself, so this can be marked a confession: I've always liked re-reading old posts. Sometimes there's an awfully good one and it's a tiny thrill to think, "Oh, I made that." Even just the average, blardy blar blar blog post has the power to transport me back to a high-def memory of what my life was like when I was writing it, and that's invaluable.

What I'm saying--and have always said--is: you should all have blogs. They are great and so are you and if you had one, I would RSS the hell out of it.

Bonus confession: there's just something about Super-Terrific. 

A couple or a few years ago, a girl named Leela stumbled on my blog and left some friendly comments. I followed one back to her blog and read at least 100 posts in one evening. When Leela graduated from high school, she closed up blog-shop; it wasn't until she left a comment here just a few weeks ago that I knew she's started up again. I think she's a college sophomore now. In Canada.

I was excited to reaquaint myself with what Leela had been up to. One evening I puffed some herb, made a huge mug of Lady Grey, and cuddled up to read the whole darn thing. The next morning, I saw that I'd actually taken some notes:

• Man, she's just adorable.
• Her writing, reading and perspective have matured--of course they have. It makes me feel...strangely proud?
• We still have strikingly similar writing styles. If I'd had a blog at Knox, it might have read a lot like this.
• Shit...she's definitely depressed.
• I know this is such a high thought, but I'll stand by it: though she's a complete stranger, and we've never directly communicated and will never meet, I'm convinced that if we'd had the cosmic luck to be born sisters, we would have been the sort of sisters who totally kick life's ass together.
• Which isn't to say the sisters the cosmos did give us aren't perfectly lovely.