feminist dichotomy.

Tuesday, while driving Miss M to swim lessons, I got "WOOOOO!"ed at while sitting in traffic. I wish I could say I flipped that douche bag off, and high fived my inner Gloria Steinem. But I did not. I did not. I smiled to myself, is what I did. And I high fived my inner Paris Hilton, who's very needy and insecure and surrounds herself with people who tell her how stupendously more awesome she is than everyone else and omg! your new haircut is GAWEGEOUS. (What I am saying is, I do get off on male attention. I am married! I am married. But does being married mean a man wolf whistling at me is supposed make me angry and self-righteously indignant? No! Not in my book. In my book, a man wolf whistling at me in public means: Oh, thank god. I still got it.) (Two things about this: (1) What is "it"? I don't know, because different people have different definitions. I guess I mean I'm still on the menu? But you can't order me? I'm sorry. Vague euphemistic analogies are all I have right now...and (2) 99% of these men are missing many, many, many teeth and I'm suspicious they don't bathe. So I take all their lust with a grain of salt.)

I consider myself a feminist. I didn't change my last name when I got married, and I stand by it. (Why trade one man's surname for another? And why don't the MEN change their names? Or why don't we combine? These are the little tricky dick questions that irk me about traditional society.) Melissa and I were walking this morning, and she was raving about swimming lessons, and being able to jump off the diving board now and ended it all with a big, "Just like a boy can!" Where did THAT come from? I asked her. (She didn't know; I think she's inherited my socially awkward, blurt gene.) So we had a long walk-talk about how boys can do things girls can do--it's okay for boys to wear nail polish, it's just fine if a boy wants to be a nurse or a teacher; and it's okay if girls want to cut their hair very short, and it's just fine for girls to be car mechanics and truck drivers. Who cares? Yeah! (we said) Who cares?? Not THESE hip chicks.

And yet I seek out faaaabulous hair stylists and apply make up...yes, sometimes even before going to bed. God help me, I like the color pink--I think it softens skin tone and creates good lighting. Color me vain. (Vain is the color magenta, by the way.)

Which I think is totally a product of being raised in a male-dominated, youth-obsessed, gratification-oriented society. (I can't and won't really defend any of that; I just think it sounded pretty good all strung up there together.) This morning I was getting out of the shower and I realized with sinking knowledge: I am going to have to get plastic surgery. It's inevitable. Having a child completely wreaked havoc on my torso portion. I could lose 8,000 pounds and never get rid of some of this sag. I'll have to visit Google University this afternoon and find out what a tummy tuck involves. If only I'd listened to and followed the advice in all those Fit Pregnancy magazine aricles way back when! Instead, I just read it while eating tubs of ice cream. And cheese. Oh my god! There was so. much. CHEESE.

I am not proud to admit this about myself. I wish I was one of those people who could just go, "Hey, World! This is meeeee! You don't like it? Go! To! Hellllll!!" and then raise up my two flabby arms, high and proud. I wish I was the kind of person who could start blogs about body shape love, no matter what shape the body was. I wish I could get on blogs run by snotty people who like to fat shame others and leave snippy but erudite comments for them, comments for which they'd never have a pithy response. But I am not one of these people. I am one of these people who gets out of the shower and sucks in her gut and, frustrated, resolves to only eat 500 calories that day. And work out for 3 hours. That's who I am. (Ask me if I end up working out 3 hours and eating 500 calories on those days--no. No, I do not. I typically end up eating 3000 calories and working out for 5 minutes.)

This summer, I resolved to work on will power. I resolved to focus on personal goals and determination. So far, I've crossed 2 things off my list (one was more blog writing, the other was more social media. I'm 2 for 2 on those easy things). It's that sit-your-butt-down-and-just-do-it I need to tap into. It's in me; once upon a time, I ran 5 and 10Ks. I ran the Peachtree Road Race, twice. Once started and focused, I can do it. Where are my blinders? I've completely misplaced them (adding FIND MY BLINDERS to my To Do list).

And writing! I am working on writing. I've started to take the stories I've heard throughout my childhood--old family stories--and based fictional short stories on them. Hopefully at summer's end I'll have a collection of these. I've also begun the television script. (Angie, if you're reading this, please close your eyes.) It is not going well. There! I said it. I said it out loud. My brain doesn't grasp script format. Wait, no. Actually, it grasps the format. But I can't tell a story that way. So I've decided to step back a bit and head to story format form...THEN write the script. Base the script on a short story. Once I get the story flowing, I think I'm good. The story didn't want to flow via script. If that makes sense.

That's all that's on my mind today. Oh, wait! And peace. Peace and kindness is figuring big in my mind and my heart today. I think human beings can, and should, coexist together in harmony. I'm tired of people constantly fighting and hurting each other. Please stop being mean to each other, humanity. Please stop.

So I'm going now. To go smoke my peace pipe (I don't smoke), listen to Age of Aquarius, and look up tummy tuck plastic surgeons (but NO Botox--I absolutely draw the line at Botox) (I might get breast implants, though. But NO Botox!) (I'm kidding. Mostly). The End.