Death tastes the sky...
Jul. 20th, 2006 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkelf105So my sister has stolen the shower and I will not be able to leave for a while and I have decided to ramble, because that is what I do after I read a particularly good and horrible and wonderful and haunting book. I ramble. I just usually don’t write it down. “The Book Thief’ has been the best book I have ever read. It has now wormed its way so far into my consciousness that I am will be forever changed from reading. Now, having said that, I cannot tell you that it is a good book or even a decent book, you will have to read and decide for yourself. I will not bore you with a recap of the book, or my literary criticisms of it. When a book affects you as much as this one has me, there isn’t much to be said.
Today I looked at my hairy, unshaven legs and I looked at the sky (powdery, strung out blue with whiter bits, it was a hot sky when I looked, as dazzling as gunfire and as pitiless, too) and I thought about how Death savored the sky, and then went back to my hairy unshaven legs. I wondered why I didn’t shave them more often; for now I was having visions of death coming for my soul and gently commenting on my unshaven legs. I wondered briefly if Death would scorn them or love them, or both. And it nagged me, why don’t I shave so often as the TV and magazines would like? And on the surface the answer would be simple, I am far too lazy to do that chore, not with so much procrastinating and vegetating and book reading to do. But I think that answer is too blithe and the real reason comes from something that happened when I was riding the bus home one day in the fifth grade. Some older boys were talking behind me (public school boys, for I went to Catholic school and in my head there was a difference between the two types of animals) and they were talking about how hot the Catholic school girls looked in their uniforms. I ignored these comments, for I am homely and thus thought I was immune to male commenting. I thought I could go through life like a piece of furniture, ignored, safe, in the background, but I was wrong. One of the canny observers of life then noticed my newly hairy legs. This was a pretty new development and I myself had missed the carpet of springy, black hair. And he whispers to his friend, except it wasn’t a whisper because whispers aren’t meant to be heard, and said “Look at her legs! Gross!” and then they all started in. And I went home, crumpled inside, and took my mother’s razor and dry shaved my legs till they were cracked and bleeding, but hairless. I missed a spot on the back, and when my mother noticed she didn’t say much except “Sweetie, it works better if you are wet and soapy, and here, let me get the backs.” I think I cried. I am pretty sure I cried. And that, I think, is where the aversion to skirts and shaving begins. And since then it has grown into a positively bitter resentment of the act. I was made hairy. I shower and I am clean, and by God, so what if my legs are hairy. I was not put on this earth to please male definitions of beauty. I was put here to read and laugh and love. And seriously for the most, I have little desire or ambition to do anything other than figure out where my next book is coming from, be with my friends, family and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rokk_lobster and figure what my next meal is going to be. And honestly, for the most part, because life IS regret and there will always be regret, that’s what separates us from the unicorns, that is the perfect way to be. But every once in a while I am reminded that no one but me really knows this and I here the snickers, about my weight or whatever other feature that God in His wisdom gave me that seems to be offending a member or two of the opposite sex. And I crumple a little inside. I cry sometimes. And then I go home and doll myself up using the blue, deathly glow of the TV and the lifeless, but glossy pictures in magazines as my guides. I feel less human after I do this, because let me tell you, being hairy is part of being human. The TV and movies and magazines and porn are all wrong. Beauty is sloppy. Everything beautiful that I have ever been witness to has been sloppy. Siblings sharing ice cream cones are sloppy. Curls are round and bouncy and not perfect. Skies are sloppy, beautiful but with colors and shapes leaching everywhere. Kisses are sloppy, at least the good ones. Puppy dogs (well puppies in general) are sloppy, the cuter the more sloppy. Cats are sloppy. Don’t believe me? Clean up a hairball or look in the litter box. Parents are sloppy. Love is sloppy. Forests, lakes, and beaches are careless and haphazard. That is where their beauty lies. Everything worth knowing and doing is so far from perfect, so far from the false worlds of the media, that it makes me wonder at the human capacity to believe in lies. Beauty doesn’t lie with perfection, not really, but with the sloppy, the awkward, the kind, the wrinkled, the moist. And I guess that’s why I don’t shave, because I am sloppy and I don’t believe much of what I am told. Diamonds are pretty. Trust I don’t mind wearing them, but they can’t shine nearly as beautiful as the sun in rokk_lobster’s hobbit hair or be as pretty as the light that streaks over Artemis as he contemplates his catness in the sun. You can’t wear sunlight all the time like a diamond, but you look better in its light than you do covered in gems. Unless of course the gems are beads of water and the honest light of the sun is making them jewels. And I guess now I am pretty sure that when I die, I want to die with unshaven legs.
Today I looked at my hairy, unshaven legs and I looked at the sky (powdery, strung out blue with whiter bits, it was a hot sky when I looked, as dazzling as gunfire and as pitiless, too) and I thought about how Death savored the sky, and then went back to my hairy unshaven legs. I wondered why I didn’t shave them more often; for now I was having visions of death coming for my soul and gently commenting on my unshaven legs. I wondered briefly if Death would scorn them or love them, or both. And it nagged me, why don’t I shave so often as the TV and magazines would like? And on the surface the answer would be simple, I am far too lazy to do that chore, not with so much procrastinating and vegetating and book reading to do. But I think that answer is too blithe and the real reason comes from something that happened when I was riding the bus home one day in the fifth grade. Some older boys were talking behind me (public school boys, for I went to Catholic school and in my head there was a difference between the two types of animals) and they were talking about how hot the Catholic school girls looked in their uniforms. I ignored these comments, for I am homely and thus thought I was immune to male commenting. I thought I could go through life like a piece of furniture, ignored, safe, in the background, but I was wrong. One of the canny observers of life then noticed my newly hairy legs. This was a pretty new development and I myself had missed the carpet of springy, black hair. And he whispers to his friend, except it wasn’t a whisper because whispers aren’t meant to be heard, and said “Look at her legs! Gross!” and then they all started in. And I went home, crumpled inside, and took my mother’s razor and dry shaved my legs till they were cracked and bleeding, but hairless. I missed a spot on the back, and when my mother noticed she didn’t say much except “Sweetie, it works better if you are wet and soapy, and here, let me get the backs.” I think I cried. I am pretty sure I cried. And that, I think, is where the aversion to skirts and shaving begins. And since then it has grown into a positively bitter resentment of the act. I was made hairy. I shower and I am clean, and by God, so what if my legs are hairy. I was not put on this earth to please male definitions of beauty. I was put here to read and laugh and love. And seriously for the most, I have little desire or ambition to do anything other than figure out where my next book is coming from, be with my friends, family and
rokk_lobster and figure what my next meal is going to be. And honestly, for the most part, because life IS regret and there will always be regret, that’s what separates us from the unicorns, that is the perfect way to be. But every once in a while I am reminded that no one but me really knows this and I here the snickers, about my weight or whatever other feature that God in His wisdom gave me that seems to be offending a member or two of the opposite sex. And I crumple a little inside. I cry sometimes. And then I go home and doll myself up using the blue, deathly glow of the TV and the lifeless, but glossy pictures in magazines as my guides. I feel less human after I do this, because let me tell you, being hairy is part of being human. The TV and movies and magazines and porn are all wrong. Beauty is sloppy. Everything beautiful that I have ever been witness to has been sloppy. Siblings sharing ice cream cones are sloppy. Curls are round and bouncy and not perfect. Skies are sloppy, beautiful but with colors and shapes leaching everywhere. Kisses are sloppy, at least the good ones. Puppy dogs (well puppies in general) are sloppy, the cuter the more sloppy. Cats are sloppy. Don’t believe me? Clean up a hairball or look in the litter box. Parents are sloppy. Love is sloppy. Forests, lakes, and beaches are careless and haphazard. That is where their beauty lies. Everything worth knowing and doing is so far from perfect, so far from the false worlds of the media, that it makes me wonder at the human capacity to believe in lies. Beauty doesn’t lie with perfection, not really, but with the sloppy, the awkward, the kind, the wrinkled, the moist. And I guess that’s why I don’t shave, because I am sloppy and I don’t believe much of what I am told. Diamonds are pretty. Trust I don’t mind wearing them, but they can’t shine nearly as beautiful as the sun in rokk_lobster’s hobbit hair or be as pretty as the light that streaks over Artemis as he contemplates his catness in the sun. You can’t wear sunlight all the time like a diamond, but you look better in its light than you do covered in gems. Unless of course the gems are beads of water and the honest light of the sun is making them jewels. And I guess now I am pretty sure that when I die, I want to die with unshaven legs.
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no subject
on 2006-07-21 12:34 am (UTC)OT: Did you know they have teen people on the childrens side of the library? Not really where I would stick it, as I think the content is gross and disgusting. I guess it does try to answer some bodily questions as accuratly as possible though, so it isn't all bad...but blah.
no subject
on 2006-07-21 02:58 am (UTC)You say such perdy things. It makes me happy when I read them. :D
no subject
on 2006-07-21 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-07-25 02:26 am (UTC)The sexual ideal for woman is to be as unnatural as possible. Blemish-free, perfect skin, full, shiny hair, thin noses, perfectly round breasts that are high and bouncy, teeny waists with gently sloping hips and perfectly heart shaped butts, and from our bottom eyelashes down not a single wisp of hair, with the occasional exception of a well tended landing strip. That is not the way women are made.
The "bombshell" is an image created from the minds of advertising men over fifty years ago. She is a woman that is "liberated" because she can have sex with whomever she chooses. She is a woman that, no matter what she thinks or how brilliant she could be, no one has to take seriously. And with all that we have accomplised as women, we are still, after all these years, compelled to look like her. It doesn't matter if we were born to be round, cuddly earth-mothers, slender, fey-like ladies or athletic goddesses. Something is wrong with us for not wanting to look like this "liberated", but still sexy, paragon of the virgin/whore complex.
Okay. That's it. I'm done...for now.
I love you. I hope you live hairy and happy my love!
Newsome