Monday, March 30, 2009

Real Women Keep Their Mouths Shut

I was a skinny kid.
Lots of kids are gangly and scrawny when they are small. At least we were in the 70s. Nowadays I see seven-year-olds who boarder on obese and I think there is no excuse for that. Get your kids off the couch people. Feed them food from the garden - not from a box! But I digress.

Yeah, I was a skinny kid. I didn't know just how skinny until adolescence. Because then - someone told me e v e r y d a y.

"Oh you're so skinny." "Oh you're lucky. You're so skinny."
In junior high when the other girls with fat potential were developing breasts and I was still a beanpole - I started to feel bad about being skinny. Sometimes I felt guilty.

There were programs on 20/20 that profiled people who had trouble losing weight. This was a new problem, apparently in the early 80s - maybe it was the advent of fast food restaurants in every small town and packaged foods for convenience. But I would watch these shows and feel bad for being skinny - so I'd scoop a huge bowl of ice cream to make up for the injustice of my size.

Each day after school I would eat 6-8 slices of toast buttered on both sides because I had heard that butter made you fat.

In high school, other girls pointed out how skinny I was. Once, in sewing class, where we measured ourselves so that ours projects would fit, I bemoaned my measurements because I knew they weren't 'womanly'. Another girl disagreed with me. "You have such a cute figure."

"Figure?!" I scoffed. "I don't have a figure. I'm a stick." Everyone laughed. Probably uncomfortably.

Other girls called me anorexic... and claimed it was a compliment. "You're so lucky, you're anorexic."
This was shocking to me. A compliment?! You just told me that I have the appearance of a mental and physical disorder!! If I said you looked like an alcoholic would you take it as a compliment? For the record, I was never anorexic. I could put away a lot of food - but I was still skinny.

Then in my college years, came the defense of curves as 'real women'. Those skinny model b!tches were the enemy. Real women have curves.

Does that mean I'm a fake woman? Because I don't have curves?

As a result, I've never felt very feminine. No breasts, no hips, no curves and in the past few years I've lost my butt too! Add to that many, many years of sexual abstinence and the result is - I rarely ever felt appealing as a woman. Men don't oogle skinny chicks. Particularly flat chested chicks who don't put out!

Now that I'm rapidly approaching 40 ( just a little more than a year away) and the clock is ticking the final count of my reproductive years - I have an incredible longing to have children, mostly to experience pregnancy and childbirth and nursing. Because that is what God created the female body to do. That's real.

Sometimes I feel like that will be the one thing that really makes me feel feminine.

Last night in a very long, very fascinating phone conversation with the latest guy I'm dating - we talked about so many things.
He has three kids, and we talked about whether I would want to have kids, and if he remarried, is he open for more children considering the brood he already has? (he is)

He asked me about my dreams... what do I really want? I told him that I still want what the world sold me as inevitable - I want to be married and have kids. I told him that I feel part of the reason I want that so badly- particularly the experience of pregnancy and childbirth - is because I've never felt really feminine - growing up skinny and being a non-curvy woman.

I was surprised to hear the shock in his voice. I realize now that a man can't understand that. When he looks at me he sees all woman. He even said that I must be curvy because he can't understand being attracted to me if I actually resembled the boyish figure that I see in the mirror!

That had to be uncomfortable for him to hear me describe myself that way. And he'll never really know what I mean. Maybe none of my bloggy friends ever will either.

Every so often I realize, when it comes to men - real women should just keep their mouths shut!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Seconds

Once upon a time I met a guy. Friends introduced us at a party at their home. He got my number and said he'd call. And despite the fact that my jaded, bitter self had long since accepted that any guy who says he's going to call - isn't - I was confident that he would.

In fact, he called me the very next evening. I was impressed. When I met my girlfriends for dinner the following evening I announced, "I met him."
I was sure that I had met my husband. It's all over but the white dress.

Two years later, I'm two years older and back in the dating pool.
Up until now I figured I would find a man who, like me, had never married and never had kids. Back in my 20s I declared that I didn't want to be any man's second anything.

It only seemed fair that if I had waited for the right man - that he also waited for me.

But it's time to be realistic. I'm 38 for a few more months. How many guys in my age range - even Catholic ones - have never been married? Or had kids - on either side of marriage?!!!

While I take pride in the fact that I didn't marry any of the wrong men, I am now in a position to consider men of divorce on a case by case basis. If I find a guy who is divorced, for valid reasons - who hasn't abandoned his children, who is just a clear cut good man - well, that's a not a bad package.

Honestly, at various points in my life I had the harsh realization that I would be ahead of the game or at least caught up if I had at least had a failed marriage.
Being single this long - people think there is something wrong with me - if I were divorced at least I'd be 'normal'.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Who Will Announce Spring?

I am chomping at the bit for spring around here. We've had some warm days mixed in with the pull-out-the-heavy-coat days. Today was a warm one. Praise the Lord.

After work, I went for a few laps around the small walking path in the park a block over.
Between my condo building and the park is a medical building with a small parking garage. For the past five years the grounds were overgrown and downright neglected. Among the growth is a lilac bush. My favorite.

Even the lilac bush, when it blooms, looks a bit worse for the wear. There is evidence that every passer-by, including me - tears a bloom or two away. I know this because when I go over with my shears, I have to clip the gorgeous fragrant blooms from the top. There are no blooms anywhere but the top.

It's too early for blooms here. Leaves haven't even started their struggle to the ends of the branches.

Today as I walked home from the park, I noticed that the landscaping around the parking garage was really spruced up. Much pruning is evident.

As I approached, I kept a keen eye out for the lilac bush. In the past, all the bushes sort of grew together, and I had to discern now which one was the prize.

When I determined the bush, I realized... someone really hacked it up! I wondered if the person who wielded the shears even knew it was a lilac bush. It's half the size it was!!!

Now I wonder - will the pruning push forth more blooms? Or will it take a few years before it's ready to get it's bloom on again?

Is my harbinger of spring even capable of making the announcement?

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Paper Crane Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Paper Crane Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Well, after spending money on something frivolous... I'd love to win this frivolous, frilly and lovely dress.

So excited! It's exactly my size!

Click the link above to see it - or enter for yourself. Although I'm sure you don't want to ruin my chances!! hee hee.

I'm Outta Control

Stopping at T*rget tonight to pick up face wash, spray starch and some baby shower gifts... I did the unthinkable.

I bought a swimsuit.
At full price no less!

Grrr.

I was just about to leave. In fact, I was on my way to the checkout when I saw the suits. They sucked me in with a darling, modest swim skirt. Not the frumpy, "My mom had that swim skirt in the 70s." swim skirt. This one was just barely a skirt. Modest yet a little s*xy.

I thought, "How practical. I'm getting old you know, almost 40. My derriere isn't as firm as it used to be, that bottom would cover plenty of imperfections. "

(it's adjustable - it can be just a bit longer than shown in this photo - which is so obviously not me!)

But, black or brown? Black would go with almost any top I would find. But I really like the brown. Hmm. Might as well try it on. Might as well grab a top.

Oh gee. Look at the tankini tops. That would hide the tummy that I'm too lazy to tone. But I can't possibly buy them both right now. You know they'll be marked down to $7 in a month or two. But this is T*rget. If you don't get your size now - it's not going to be here in April.

My friends. I don't even swim. I haven't been to the beach, or to a pool or even a hot tub in years. I do not need a swim suit. Other than the fact that all my other barely ever worn - and certainly not for more than sunbathing suits - are bikinis and I don't like my body enough right now to even think about wearing them.

Besides, I'm on C*tholic M*tch now and by summer I'll be dating some great guy who wants to take me up to the mountains to sit in the hot springs. Right?

Yeah. So I bought a swimsuit.

Brown, by the way.

Idiot.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Every Girl Needs Support

This still makes me laugh - I have to share.

My girlfriends and I were talking about the approach of swimsuit season, and the conversation turned to V!ctor!a's Secret swimsuits. Each of us had one at one point and were mostly satisfied.

One friend protested, "Ugh. No. V!ctor!a's Secret swimsuits are awful!"
Heads swiveled her direction. What on earth could be so bad about them? Considering the rest of us had positive experiences.

She continued... "They have absolutely no support!"

Three of us responded in confused shock. "Support?" You could tell that internally we were all thinking "What does support have to do with swimsuits?" Then we all burst out laughing.

Three A cup gals questioning the one gal with an actual bosom!!

Thursday, March 05, 2009

4 X 4 Photo Phun!

Maggie tagged me!

Considering my love of photography it was not hard to comply.

Here are the rules: go to your computer and open the fourth photo folder, then click on the fourth photo and post it. Put in a little explanation of what it is and then tag four other people.

I really had no intention of cheating... but the fourth folder was full of photos I did for a 'customer' and I didn't feel right putting that up without a release. So I figured, maybe I'd go to the 5th folder, but that was also of a photo session for a friend. Same issue.




So I settled on file #3 ...









This is my Dad's 75th Birthday party. We held it in the indoor arena on our family ranch. My brother hired a guitar duo to play all evening, and this was just after a round of 'Happy Birthday'. Here you see a bunch of my relatives and family friends. That is just a fraction of the crowd. Dad said he felt like he was at his own funeral! All the people!

That's my dad in the cowboy hat and suspenders. My mom is the light brown head right under dad's head, clapping in the tan toned shirt.

For the sake of spontaneity, and fairness I counted down four more files and the fourth photo there is...





The final odometer reading on my car that died an unexpected death last August.

RIP Gracie.





So... who to tag? I'll start with Keli - and as she is a photographer I'll give her a pass on any client photos but I'm guessing her hard drive is more organized than mine!

And Bobbi... and... Ronnica they are both sure to have something fun. Finally... hmmm someone new who is following my blog... Oh I know... this will be exciting because of her exotic locale... Caribbean Shulamite!!!
Watch... she'll find a picture of her bathroom or something.

Have fun!

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