31 Plays in 31 Days: #17 - "Slimming"

Today's piece came from watching Project Runway, which my mom recently got me into. The teaser for next week's episode suggested they'd be designing for non-models-- people bigger than a size two and below five-ten --and perhaps even actual plus-sizes. Unfortunately there was the definite suggestion that the designers were struggling to make nice clothes for people who weren't built like the walking coat hangers, and I know they design those teasers to be as shocking and inflammatory as possible to draw people in, but I will be very displeased if they spend the whole episode making fat people feel bad about themselves. So I wrote this in response to that attitude-- if that is in fact a mindset on the next episode of the show, I hope they are similarly disabused.

For those who know the show, I picture Freddy being a lot like Christopher Palu (whose Jared-like combination of great talent and emotional delicacy I find endearing) and Heidi is named, of course, in tribute to the Aryan Uberfrau who hosts.

Day #17 - "Slimming"

(Enter FREDDY MOREAU, gangly in avant-garde dress, with HEIDI KLEIN, heavyset and well put-together. He leads her to sit in a chair beside a drawing table and a body form.)

FREDDY: Heidi, I’m so honored that you came to me.

HEIDI: Well, I really liked what you did on Design Star. That tuxedo-styled cocktail dress with the peplum was great.

FREDDY: Oh, thank you! I was really proud of that one. So you need an evening gown, right?

HEIDI: Mom’s up for an Oscar this year, and they say she has a decent chance of winning, so we all have to look good for the cameras.

FREDDY: Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you look amazing for the big night.

(He pulls some pages out of a portfolio and hands them to her for inspection.)

FREDDY: I was making some sketches…

HEIDI: Wow, Freddy. These are… flowier than you usually do.

FREDDY: Yeah, I thought it would work for you.

HEIDI: I was kind of hoping we could do something with a peplum. Like on the tuxedo dress.

FREDDY: Oh, trust me, this will be much more flattering. See, it’s got a long, A-line skirt and an empire waist—

HEIDI: How come?

FREDDY: A-lines always look good. And empire waists are very forgiving to the midsection.

HEIDI: Okay.

FREDDY: And we’ll do it all up in a sophisticated black taffeta.

HEIDI: I like brighter colors. I was thinking maybe orange, or coral.

FREDDY: But black is so sleek! Or navy, navy is easy to wear too! And with your skin— you’ll glow!

(He pulls out a length of black taffeta and drapes it over HEIDI.)

FREDDY: See? Very elegant.

HEIDI: Freddy.

FREDDY: Yeah?

HEIDI: No matter what, I’m still going to be fat.

FREDDY: What?

HEIDI: No matter how slimming all your little design tricks are, nobody’s actually going to think I’m slim.

FREDDY: Oh, Heidi, no! You’re not fat, you’re just… full-figured!

HEIDI: Seriously, Freddy.

FREDDY: But that’s okay! We just have to pick the right style for you!

HEIDI: The style to make me look most like… I’m not fat?

FREDDY: Everybody looks good in different things.

HEIDI: But if you’re fat, that’s big and drapey in boring colors.

FREDDY: Every figure is different!

HEIDI: Exactly. I know you got used to designing for runway models, but we’re not all walking coat hangers.

FREDDY: I was trying to consider that.

HEIDI: And not everybody wants to look like one. Consider that.

FREDDY: I just… I just wanted to help you look good.

HEIDI: Good, yeah. Not thin. And if you need a six-foot hundred-pound woman to make your clothes look good, well, maybe you’re not that good a designer after all.

(She gets up and goes to leave.)

FREDDY: Wait! Please, Heidi… why don’t you tell me what you want to look like? I… I’m sure I can make that happen for you.

(HEIDI considers him a moment, then returns to the chair.)

FREDDY: So… you like orange and pink, huh?

My red mark

As long as I can remember, I've had a little mark on my breast. It's about the size of the head of a pin, it's ever so slightly raised, has a very subtle sunburst shape, and is not particularly remarkable in any way except for the fact that it is lipstick red and been there, unchanged, forever.

What the heck is it? A birthmark? I've never seen one so completely red before. A wound, the scar of a broken vessel? It's not painful, it's always been there, and that color. I've never seen one on anybody else.

Anyone have any idea what it is?

Back in the workout swing

I have managed to get myself back into working out at least four days a week lately. For about the past month or so, I have made sure to have around four days of a workout that lasts at least thirty minutes, usually closer to an hour. In the afternoons, I walk from my house to the Brandeis gym, which takes about fifteen minutes. When I arrive I stretch my knees, hips, and Achilles tendons, and practice ballet in the dance studio, or in one of the racquetball rooms if it's taken, for about thirty minutes. Then I either run on the elliptical or do a circuit in the weight room for fifteen minutes. Then I walk home for another fifteen. That's a lot longer than any workouts I ever managed to get in the habit of doing in the past, so I think I'm finally really challenging myself.

One day a week I got to the little gym on the corner of High and Newton street in Waltham and get run through a real circuit workout by a trainer. For one hour they switch you between cardio and and an intense weight routine with one-minute breaks between intervals. That is very challenging, and I usually leave pretty ripped up and exhausted. It's a little more expensive than I would like, but I really think its helping, so I'm sticking with it even though it's kind of tough on my budget. (Also the only feasible per-session price for me required committing for a year.)

I think I must be progressing, as the trainer has been pushing me lately. I'm not sure I feel that different, but I've never had very good perspective on my physical state. I am lucky that my body is always in at least decent condition; I have no real chronic pain and few physical limitations. I don't remember any real difference in how my body felt at my physical peak compared to the lethargy of a few months ago, or when at a depression-induced all-time-low weight versus lately at the heaviest I've been since high school. Not sure I see anything, but Bernie says he thinks my arms and legs look stronger, and when I flex my thighs they feel firmer than I've ever noticed them being before.

I went to the gym in the morning before work today. Unfortunately as I drove, it cut out the two fifteen minute walks there and back, but I still got in dancing and elliptical. Through most of college I got up early to go exercise, and the most consistent workout habit I've ever been in was when I did workouts five days a week in the morning before 9AM class with an additional workout on Saturdays. Maybe it'll be good for me to make this a habit again, especially since it'd be nice to not lose that chunk of time in the afternoons when I usually do chores, errands, and homework, but I am a little sorry about the abbreviation necessitated by having to get to work on time.

I'm also determined to progress in ballet, even without having classes to attend again until September. I've been getting in at least a little practice three or four times a week. I'm worried of getting into bad habits without a teacher watching, but I'm doing my best to remember what I've learned. I'm not sure my technique has improved, but one thing that does actively seem to be better than before is my balance. I've elected to practice off the barre in the interest of challenging myself to not depend on it, and I find I have become considerably less wobbly as I go through the steps. Maybe it's just because I am in fact getting stronger rather than becoming a better dancer, as holding yourself in the correctly balanced positions demands a lot of muscle control, but it's encouraging. It makes me want to keep at it, and I kind of hope that somebody who saw me before will notice and confirm that I have in fact improved in that department.



I have become obsessed with this video of ballerina Polina Semionova. I love the way it's filmed so that the camera follows her and focuses on the positions of her body, it allows you to really appreciate her technical perfection and just how lovely her dancing is. I love how long her legs are, how toned and strong she is without having that creepy pulled-tight look. My favorite parts kind of surprised me, as they weren't any of the big impressive things, but I really liked where she's just doing developpe over and over with one leg as she perfectly balances on the other with not a ripple going through the rest of her, and when she marches backwards on point in time to the music with her hands at her sides. It's a really lovely dance, very joyful and athletic. Makes me wish I'd started doing this younger, so I could have progressed with it more.

Getting over that popped button

I popped another button on a pair of jeans the other day. Promptly collapsed into a self-hating mess that I had to dig myself out of before I could be a functional human being again. In order to make that happen, had to think through some things to get myself out of that headspace.

When I was in undergrad, this is pretty typical of how I dressed every day. Jeans (size zero Lucky's) and a shirt short enough to show at least a little bit of midriff. My stomach, obsessed over constantly by me, was one of my best features, and I liked to show it off.

Now I have a day job, in an office with a professional dress code. It's frequent I'll go weeks at a time without wearing jeans, because it would mean going through a whole second set of clothes after work. I don't always want to generate that much laundry. And the whole bare midriff thing in the professional world certainly does not give off a vibe of "take me seriously." But I've also done it less because I've put on weight. I am ever so slightly too big for my old jeans, and while it's mostly okay, I wore them tight enough already that I don't exactly have a lot of growing room. And I hate the muffin top look, the look of being squishy. I am less enthused to show off a midriff that is less lovely than it was before.

I know I'm being melodramatic. I'm still small enough that I still get referred to as "the skinny one" and have people marvel at how child's-sized my clothes are. But I've been thin enough in the past to model underwear. To have those jeans fit like someone painted them on me. And going from that to popping buttons is depressing like I can't express. I look at pictures of my old body, remember how my pants used to fit, and can't help but feel like things have gone a little wrong.

But you know, the more I get hung up on my literal size, the less that size becomes associated with how good I actually look. Which is what I really care about, of course. Yes, I probably have a little bit too much attachment to that little zero on the tag in my dress, but I really just like having nice narrow waist to allow my decidedly non-childbearing hips to seem somewhat full by contrast, and smooth muscle on my tummy. Yeah, well-defined abdominals someday would be nice-- I have a kidney and a liver in near-mint condition if someone would like to trade --but I will settle. And even a little heavier, I need to focus on the evidence of my eyes. Something that can't be quantified in inches or pounds. And you know what? I'm still looking pretty good.

And yeah, I'm looking to drop a little of the extra weight. I'm already working to tone back up. But giving myself a complex about it is not going to help me feel better about my body. Which is what I really want.

Staving off the post-show crash with physical activity

Aaaaaand here's that emotional crash I was expecting from the show being over. I had a lovely evening last night with Steph and Jenn, but this morning I woke up with a longing for rehearsal. I've been trying to stave it off with physical activity apparently. It's a strategy that's helped in the past with low points. When I'm sad I want to lay around and do nothing, so getting on a schedule of things I have to do, such as going to work out, helps me immensely.

I was really looking forward to being able to go to ballet class two times a week again, but it turns out that they're going on hiatus for the summer except for a two-week intensive that looked interesting but is pretty far out of my budget. But I've resolved that I'm going to try to dance, at least a little, every day on my own. I've messed around in the the dance studio in the Brandeis gym every day so far this week. Practicing ballet, trying to figure out some choreography. I will be meeting Charlotte this weekend to brainstorm, so I want to have a few thoughts in my head and my tendons loose enough to do stuff!

I've also been going once a week to this little gym place in Waltham for a session with a trainer. It's a pretty intense circuit workout, where you alternate between equal periods of weights and cardio with a one-minute break in between each period for one hour. I hate it considerably less than I would have expected to. Mostly it's been challenging but not insurmountable, which is nice. It's really made my physical strengths and weaknesses stand out to me. My back is a little weak, it tends to get sore and tired quickly when it's engaged. And anything involving my arms is real work. I didn't even realize how noodly they were because I think both my arms and back look pretty good, but apparently there's nothing really there. Is it wrong that I kind of like their waifishness? Whatever. My ab strength, however, impressed even my trainer. My abs are apparently considerably above the fitness level of the rest of my body and I can breeze through most of the recommended exercises for my level at twice the reps. Gee, guess that's what happens when you're that fixated on one particular part of your body. If only I could get rid of the layer of bleh over them so the word could SEE how good they are. ;-) Alas, I continue to dream.

I do think it's helping. Periodically we have to max out on pushups, the wall sit, and the plank, and each time I've managed to do better than my previous time, so at least I'm getting stronger. I'd really like to be losing weight, but my eating habits have been so terrible lately, as they always tend to become as show dates approach, so I'll have to buckle back down. I noticed last night that my thighs are firmer than they've been in quite some time, which is nice. Unfortunately my knee tendons still twang during certain exercises. *Sigh* The hips of a contortionist and the knees of an old lady, as I've discovered in ballet. Is this really all the same body? I think ballet may be very slowly, very slightly helping with that, though, so if I manage to do the dancing and the accompanying stretching ever day like I plan, maybe I'll see real progress. It's a shame that since I'm getting stronger, I won't be going to ballet class. I was just grumbling about how as soon as we get to the hard stuff by the end of class, I'm almost out of energy and never dance as well.

My legs are hideous with about eight zillion bug bites that I got at the cast party-- and I've never managed to do a show without getting bruised --but at least they're getting toned.

Grumble grumble grouch grouch

Grouchy. I wanted to finish recording Gigi's parts in the first and second episodes of Tailor of Riddling Way last night, but there was an unaccountable buzz being recorded by the headset. This is a new thing and we couldn't figure out where the hell it was coming from. It was very consistent, so Bernie could edit it out mostly, but it was very hard to get it so there wasn't any distortion remaining in the line. We managed to get all her lines for episode one done, which means we could focus on producing that for release in the meantime, but I wanted to get the couple of remaining pieces of episode two as well. Gigi is going home for the summer at least, and though there is a strong chance she will be attending Boston College Law School this coming semester and will be accessible then, at least for the meantime she will not be readily available. I hate when this sort of technical error happens, because I hate anything in my projects happening that is beyond my personal ability to fix. Also, chances are I'll have to spend money on new equipment to deal with this, which I really, really don't want to do, and I'll have to make sure any new equipment records a sound that isn't radically different from the recordings we've already got.

Also, I hurt my ankle a few days ago and it is getting in my way. It feel fine as long as I'm sitting on my ASS being USELESS, but I have too many things to do and I do enough sitting as it is. Unfortunately the more I walk on it, the more painful it becomes, not all that much but just enough to be really, really irritating. I have dance I want to work on, and this is not helping at all.

Plie in heels

Ever heard of a "click moment"? An instance where due to looking at something in a particular way makes something suddenly make more sense to you than it ever had before?

I had a small once last night when I discovered something interesting. I was at rehearsal, waiting off to the side for my cue to enter. I started idly practicing some ballet steps, holding on to a study carrel like a bar in the high school library where we rehearse. I especially like to practice developpes, because they're so difficult for me, incorporated into some basic routines we use in class.

I've never had a very deep demi-plie in fifth. I can go reasonably low in first and extremely low in second, but not at all in fifth. But last night it seemed remarkable, without even stretching or warming up, I was getting much, much deeper than I ever did in class. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what was different until I realized. I was wearing character shoes, bought specifically for this role as Irene Adler. Very low ones, only an inch high, unfortunately; I was in a rush when I got them, but if I'd had more time I would have sought out slightly higher heels. But when you do a demi-plie in fifth you're supposed to keep your heels flat on the ground, limiting your bend to how long your Achilles tendons can stretch from that position. In my case I guess that's not much. But with my heels even one inch higher off the ground than usual, I could bend many inches deeper than otherwise. It was strange what a huge difference just one inch off the ground made. And it highlighted how important it is for me to keep my body position in mind when I dance.

Not a big deal, I guess. But it kind of blew my mind.

Bah, ribcage!

I am a person of petite dimensions, and of the good fortune to be proportionately built in practically all measures. It makes buying clothes a lot easier, as the retail clothing industry tends to assume there is kind of one general figure and makes each successful size just larger in all dimensions according to those proportions. But time and again, I am confounded by my one feature that is decidedly OUT of proportion with the rest of me, the one that just happens to be my least favorite physical feature, my monstrous blocky ribcage.

A while ago I was reading an article about retail dress sizes that included the measurements they generally conform to for various fitting points. Despite the fact that real people are rarely "standard" shapes, there are a certain confluence of measurements that are expected to coincide in people that dictates their size. For example, for a woman of a given height, she is predicted to have a bust of so many inches, a waist of so many inches, so on and so forth, and that's how they determine the dimensions of a size. For mine, let's call it size X, because what number they actually put on the size is all over the place depending on the manufacturer-- it tends to get considered everything from a double-zero to a four. My height, hips, bust, waist, and shoulders were almost exactly right for size X. My band size? Almost three inches LARGER than the measure predicted. In many systems that three SIZES above where the rest of me falls.

Of course I didn't need a numerical breakdown to tell me that. I don't know how many beautiful things have fit me everywhere except for the uncomfortable binding over my ribs. It's a curse modeling samples, because it's the one part that doesn't conform. The only upside is that it's not usually super-visible in how well it fits me, it just feels really uncomfortable. It sucks being restricted in a place that's supposed to expand even farther out when you breathe. And it's not a matter of weight or anything, this is the shape of my skeleton, so there's nothing I can do to change it.

Look at this. I love this dress and it looks great on me in most ways, but still, when I sit a certain way you can see how the material is pushed on by my monstrous ribcage trying to punch its way out.

Ugh. My stupid ribs are one of the reasons I want to stay so thin. They're so oversized that they blend into a wider waistline and make me look blocky. They're not even freaking EVEN, the left side comes out farther than the right, made worse by the fact that my hernia surgery on the right side seems to have included the complete removal of the patch of muscle immediately below the ribs.

They are easily my coarsest, most unfortunate, least liked feature. And I especially hate it when it makes me feel like a cow when I try on pretty things that fit nicely everywhere else.

Touch boundaries

I was in an audition situation recently where I had to do an emotional scene with a partner who I felt was a strong, cooperative actor. As the scene reached its emotional point, he put his arm around me for emphasis. I didn't know this guy at all, and normally, I would not choose to allow a stranger to touch me like that, especially by presumption. But in the context of the scene we were doing, a scene meant to impress the directors with our performances, I was fine with him doing it and in fact kind of glad that he was willing to make that effort despite the boldness it required. It made the interaction feel more complete, more real.

I believe in absolute bodily autonomy. There is no "fair play" when it comes to your physical boundaries, you have the right to say at every minute on every occasion whether or not a touch of any kind is acceptable to you. But sometimes I wish it were more acceptable in our culture to be casually physical. Our culture has kind of decided that unless you are quite young, closely related, or necessarily both, touch is an indicator of romantic connection or sexual interest rather than part of the way human beings are naturally inclined to interact with each other. And if you don't want to convey either of those things, your safest bet is to just not touch somebody. I often find myself feeling resistant to making or accepting physical contact for reasons other than because contact is unwelcome. I worry that I will come off as boundary crossing, or indicating an interest that does exist, or inappropriate because of my current romantic status. (I also worry that if I allow some people to touch me others I'm less comfortable with will think they can do the same, though that's another issue entirely.)

That bugs me because it's a cultural notion that I don't want to have to deal with. I don't like the idea that my actions are limited because people will make assumptions about those actions that are incorrect. I don't like the idea that there's something to be automatically on guard against as far as touch is concerned, because that's not part of normal human interaction and it always means an intrusion or an advance. Again, I'm not suggesting that people should have to get more comfortable with touch. I'm just wishing certain views and attitudes that contribute to people not being comfortable with touch were not part of our collective culture.

I remember in my run of The Prince Comes of Age, I had interactions with Calliope Desenberg, for whom it was her first larp. Not only was I impressed by her willingness to throw herself in despite her inexperience, but also by how she would take my hand when she spoke to me. It was gutsy and real and made the experience of roleplaying with her stronger. Her lack of fear in that area made me wish that I did the same thing more often.

Touch is healthy. It's one of the reasons massage can be healing; even laying your hand on someone encourages blood flow to that area, which can speed recovery and cleansing. Babies who aren't held and touched enough don't develop normally, it's such an important part of their formative period. People who don't experience some kind of physical contact on a regular basis, even something as simple as handshakes or pats on the shoulder, are much more prone to physical unwellness. I don't really like the notion that the optimum state of affairs is that we all have a bubble around us that it is necessarily creepy and wrong to move out of. I've heard that in some circles even tapping someone on the shoulder without permission is considered inappropriate, and yes, while everyone has the right to totally determine their own boundaries and I'm never going to tell someone who feels that way that they can't choose that if they want to, way to operate off the assumption that all touch is a potential violation and an unnatural interaction between human beings.

But at the same time, I am glad that we have the notion that touch can be an intrusive thing and you are not allowed to just go around touching whoever you want. Forget the creepier and more dangerous manifestations of being who do not respect boundaries; there are definitely casual huggers I know who I wish would cut it out, to which my reaction tends to be, "We don't have this kind of relationship." It's not that I think they're so wrong or inappropriate for being that way, I just don't really want to participate in it. I should have that right, as much as the no-shoulder-tapping person should so that they feel physically safe. But I do wish people formed their personal preferences based on their comfort rather than from the influence of weird social pressures that may not necessarily reflect the truth.

Forty-class ballet report

Okay, so I'm not quite at forty yet. According to my calendar, last night marked my thirty-ninth ballet class since I started in September. I have missed classes here and there for other commitments, but by and large I have made it a point to go to every Tuesday and Thursday nights for the beginner course, and I have been enjoying it.

In the last couple of weeks, I think I can finally say I have observed real improvement. For one thing, my teachers do not automatically say "Drop your shoulders," every time they look at me, which was a real problem I'd been having. My ballet arms struck me as incredibly ugly for the longest time, but now when I look at myself in the mirror they seem to look a lot more like they're supposed to. Also, the nature of the critiques I've been getting has grown more particular. You know when your teacher's comments get increasingly nitpicky that you're making forward progress and doing a better job. I am really pleased by this, as this is something I would really love to develop proficiency in. Especially since when I started I had a hard time feeling how the way my body was working didn't conform to what it was supposed to be doing.

Here's an example. I have always had good turnout, apparently, as I received several compliments on it right away and continue to do so. I suspect it has to do with the fact that turnout comes from the outward rotation of the hips, and my hips are far and away the most flexible part of my body. The only factor limiting my turnout is, no surprise, my knees, which are conversely the tightest and least flexible. Still, I'd been feeling slightly off, especially since I think that even though I can do turnout right, it was making my feet become pronated. Nobody's said anything about it, so maybe it's not that bad, but I can feel my feet slightly rolling towards my ankle. But recently something clicked for me that I think helped me do better. We had a substitute teacher one week from another studio, and I don't remember exactly what it was that she said, but with her I suddenly grasped that if I made a point of lifting my hips, I would bring my weight more directly over my legs rather than allowing it to pull back against them. That lack of pulling back took a lot of the pressure off my knees when turned out, which caused my feet to pronate in order to maintain balance. Making that posture change helped enormously, soothing my knees and easing the pronation, and I am working to maintain it as I dance.

Of course my technique is still beginner-baby-lame. My biggest challenges now mostly boil down to the fact that while I'm relatively fit, I am just not strong enough to always manipulate my muscles properly. Ballet takes an enormous amount of strength to constantly maintain correct position and balance as you go through the movements, and I'm just not there yet. I often end up with twitchy muscles the next day, like the maddening little flurry that won't get out of my kneecap right now. At least it's encouraging me to stretch more, and that not only helps my dancing but also my daily comfort; my tight knees really do plague me. But the more tired I get, the more wobbly or floppy I become. I should be practicing more. To that end, I have a weird idea that I'm going to see if I can put into action.

One problem with practicing ballet is that you need the right surface to do it on so your shoes slide right over it. I try to go to the dance studio in Gosman when I can, but it's usually occupied. So I have a weird little idea that I'm not sure is going to work but I kind of want to try it anyway. I noticed in the dollar store that you can buy cheap, approximately one foot square linoleum tiles that you can lay on your own. I think they're self-adhesive. Probably not the best thing you can use for flooring, but designed for a budget, and smooth enough to slide over. I want to buy a bunch of them, stick them to a big sturdy piece of cloth, and see if I can make a smooth mini-ballet surface I can lay out when I want to practice and fold up like a game board when I want to put it away. It would have to be small, which means I would only be able to do stationary stuff on it, but that's better than no practice at all, and I could use it whenever I felt like practicing. Again, who knows if that will work, but it wouldn't be a big investment of time or resources, so it's worth a try. It would likely encourage me to work at ballet more.

This is my current favorite image of ballet. You go, bear. Best pas de deux ever.

Old lady sweater

I recently thrifted a sweater that I've been wearing quite a lot lately, but despite that it's not in my usual style and I'm not sure how I feel abut it.

I do not normally wear long sweater coats, particularly of this shape, but I was drawn to it to use as a warm over-layer. It's actually a very high-quality piece, BCBGMaxAzria in a hundred percent lambswool that isn't itchy at all. It's also got unusual horizontal seams on the middle of the back and the elbows that spread out into triangles on either side.

I've been wearing it a lot lately because it's warm and easy to thrown on over whatever else I've got on. Trouble is, I feel kind of schlubby in it and that bugs me. I usually hate wearing things of a boxy shape, especially when they're oversized. Clothes that fit like that are the easiest way to make yourself seem shapeless, sloppy, or not put together, all things that I've been trying to avoid ever since I resolved to learn how to dress better. And from the back, well, let's say it doesn't make it my most flattering angle.

Looks like you could land on a plane on my ass. At least you can see the back seam better.

I never want to settle for looking like a schlub just for something that's comfortable and warm; there is always an equivalent that looks nicer that I could go for instead. I haven't been feeling terribly attractive lately, what with the weight gain and everything else, so I worry this is a sign that I'm starting to feel like what's the point, I'm not going to look that good anyway. I don't know. I go back and forth between whether I think it looks bad or whether it's a perfectly legitimate styling I'm just not used to on myself. I know it's just a stupid sweater, not exactly worth having a crisis over, but I do worry if it means I'm trying to hide myself because of not feeling pretty much lately.

Musing on body image drawn out of an unlikely place

A couple of years ago, Jared introduced me to an Internet reviewer of movies and video games who calls himself Spoony. He's pretty funny and has a good eye for evaluating media, so I've come to be a follower of his site, The Spoony Experiment.

For a while, he was dating a woman who helped him produce his videos during the course of their relationship. Spoony projects an air of being a lonely, horny gamer geek as part of his reviewer persona, so I hadn't been aware that he even had a girlfriend for most of the time I've been watching. Apparently a lot of his fans developed a distaste for her, I'm not sure why. I guess some of them started disliking things Spoony began doing in his work, and in typical misogynist Internet troll fashion, they started blaming her influence despite her probably having nothing to do with it, calling her "Yoko," because of course they couldn't just disagree with their hero's artistic choices, it had to be the fault of that harpy in his life. And of course, they starting running down her appearance because you can't criticize a woman without bringing that up. She showed up in one of his videos once, and was immediately met with a flood of comments about how fat and ugly she was. There are not too many images of her on the web these days, I gather because of a purge in response to that outpouring of cruelty. They are no longer together now, but I only just heard about this stomach-turning little saga. Which has gotten me thinking about something tangentially related that I want to talk about now.

I will say that the woman is not beautiful, at least not to my tastes. Coarse features, a little too heavily made up, and kind of a blocky build. I am not bringing this because I am in any way suggesting that they way they treated her was acceptable. It's one thing to hold a private opinion, it's quite another to treat someone like they've committed a trespass against you simply for daring to appear in public when they don't conform to your personal aesthetic. She's not here to decorate your world, assholes.

The reason I bring it up is because, also as part of the lonely, horny gamer geek persona, Spoony spends a decent chunk of time going on about how hot various female characters are in the course of his reviews. And in general, given that these are media figures and artists' renderings, those characters tend to conform to the very mainstream notion of beauty, suggesting that slavish devotion to the ideal that makes so many women feel like they can never possibly measure up. And yet, for as much as he goes on and on about characters that look like that, he was involved, and apparently happy, with a woman who was in no way like that ideal.

The extremity of that contrast has got me thinking, and this is the reason I'm writing this entry. Because of the omnipresence of the tall thin stacked woman with delicate features held up as the beautiful ideal by the media, a lot of women struggle with the notion that this really is the best kind of beauty. This is something I certainly wrestle with myself. I have a hard time letting go of the notion that the current beauty ideal has attained its primacy because that's what people, at least most people, genuinely like best. And that if I don't conform to it myself, then at best someone who wants me is "settling" for being less attracted?

And yet. How often do we encounter people attracted to woman who drool over media figures and yet are in a relationship with a more average-looking woman who they clearly adore? Where does that come from? That's not the message we have driven home all the time.

Jared's take on it was that, at least for him, there are many kinds of beauty that he finds attractive. Yes, Airbrushed Skinny Stacked Celebrity Woman is definitely appealing. But she's just one kind of appealing, perhaps one that he is less likely to encounter in real life and so much be enjoyed in her media context. But she's not better than the other kinds of appealing that women can be. He just enjoys her as well as all the other kinds.

That's it for Jared, anyway. I'm sure it's different for other people. But I do think a fairly universal truth of it is, as much as the media and advertising may suggest to the contrary, I think most real people genuinely don't hold up one notion of beauty as the "best" or "most desirable." And even if a person does find a "more idealized" appearance technically more attractive, appearance becomes genuinely less important in the wake of more the more significant qualities of personhood. It may be that we don't actually need to teach each other to stop fixating on unattainable beauty, because we're not actually all that fixated on it. We just need to keep from internalizing the idea that that's actually what others want and expect us to be.

No one in my life thinks I'm not good enough the way I am. So I need to stop being afraid of something that's not there.

It's not a new idea I'm talking about here. It's just a hard one that I, and I think other people as well, have a hard time holding in my head. But there's evidence of it everywhere, if we just believe the evidence of our eyes.

Festival signups and Titus build

Both of my games at Festival, The Stand and Paranoia, have now filled. The Stand will be interesting because this time it seemed I was getting a lot of female players, so in order to accommodate them I opened up a few neutral slots. Now I have thirteen men and twelve women to play seventeen male and nine female characters, which is more skewed to the female than either of the previous runs were. If any of these lovely ladies are willing to be cross cast that will make everything a snap, but if not enough of them are, I will have to consider what currently male characters I can gender swap. Given the setting and historical time period, it's a pretty gendered game, and while there are plenty of people stepping outside of their proscribed roles, it's usually pretty significant to their plot. Still, that should actually be a fun and interesting challenge should the need arise. Festival looks to be a good con overall; it's a good roster of games at this point, and they're almost all completely full. Well done, ninja_report*, for making this happen!

Build for the current HTP show, Titus Andronicus, has begun. Though the show is still several weeks off, their unfortunately early performance dates mean there is no show in the theater before them, so they were able to move in and get started. I hope the extra time proves to be of benefit to them. I went by the last couple days to lend a hand here and there where I could. I really enjoy helping with build week. With work and school I spend so much time doing mental, sedentary work that my body craves a chance to pit itself against physical work of some kind. And It's not often that I get a chance to build things. Carpentry is one of the many things I'd love to learn if it weren't something that required a significant money and space investment, so it's nice to have an outlet every now and then to experience it. And I like the challenge to my body to do that kind of work.

My new sewing buddy

Look at my new friend!

This is my early Christmas present-- early because when my parents came up to Boston, they wanted to drop it off then. I am so excited to use her, and I'm sure this will be great to learn and work on. I think draping sounds fascinating, and a good bodyform is essential for doing it.

Sewing equipment sizing being based on an older system, as you can see I got an eight. That's a wee bit bigger than I actually am, but my mom suggested it would be better to work on something slightly too big than slightly too small, and Heaven knows there's only one way we go as we get older.

She needs a name now so I can properly refer to her. I want something old fashioned, a fine old lady sort of name. Suggestions welcome, of course. I look forward to telling you about sticking her with pins and covering her with my crude draping attempts. :-)

Bitter ballet notes

I hate all those little things I have that limit how well I can dance.

My damn tight knees plague me. I can only lift my leg so high in front of me, which means even though I have the strength to hold it up just so, the pain from the pulling in my tendons makes it so I sometimes can't quite do it anyway. Developpe devant, or when you lift your leg bent directly in front of you and then gradually fully extend it, is ridiculously difficult for me.

I am pretty strong. Fitter, I think, than most of the other students in my class. I think that helps some. But my flexibility everywhere except my hips is so poor that my progress is suffering for it.

My Achilles tendons aren't in pain anymore, but they seem different all the same. Maybe it's my imagination, but I feel like I'm not plieing as deeply lately. I make sure to stretch them very thoroughly before each time dancing but I think they're not as good as they were before I hurt them.

My turned ankle hasn't healed, at least not completely. It's still weak, and I can feel it uncomfortably every time I stand on just that leg. It's worse when I try to plie one-legged just that side. I'm afraid it's never going to be quite right, which bugs me.

I also get dizzy so easily. We were learning chene turns yesterday and I could not do more than two in a row without my head spinning. I know you're supposed to spot, but I suck at it, and end up staggering. I theoretically know how spotting works but I never seem to be able to do it right.

My arms are still ugly. I don't know why it's so damn hard for me to keep my shoulders relaxed and hold them bent in the proper way at the proper placement in relation to my body. But I am consistently criticized about how I do them wrong. It's not that complicated, but for some reason they always come out ugly.

I like both the Tuesday and Thursday night teachers. One is a middle-aged French woman thin as a whip, the other is a pretty young American with a soft figure and a face straight out of an Edwardian painting. She's nice-looking enough by today's standards, but I think if she'd lived a hundred or so years early she would have been considered a great beauty. They are both good teachers, though I think the French lady's instruction is a little more rigorous. Still, perhaps because I like that it feels a little easier, I prefer the younger woman even though I like both.

I have not made as much progress as I would have hoped to in twenty-one classes. I know this is something that's supposed to take years to get good at, but I feel like my body holds me back so much that lots of things don't improve no matter how hard I try. I don't mind it being hard, but I want the feeling of working toward a difficult goal that I can make progress with enough time and effort.

Quick bulleted update



Mixed bag here, some good and some bad. First, the good:

- It's official, I'm going to become a direct employee at Integralis rather than a contractor from an agency. Not sure when it's going to happen, but the process has been started. My rep is going to try to get me a pay increase, which would be really nice, but it's not like I'm going anywhere if it doesn't happen.

- I actually think I'm losing weight, which pleases me. I tried on some clothes that had started to fit like sausage casings and they were a lot more comfortable. My thighs are still too big and I'm still softer in the middle than I have been in years, but I am seeing results while still feeling good about my eating, so using the calorie counter has been working.

- Today I am going to upgrade my phone. I've had an iPhone 2 I think for about two years now and it's showing it age, running slow and blowing up constantly. I'm going to cash in my upgrade and get the new one.

Now the bad:

- Still haven't decided what my next project will be, because this week was an endless parade of expensive, pain-in-the-ass chores that all took longer than they should have. Had to pay to get my car fixed, chase down some undelivered packages, take the HTP props and costumes back to club storage, pick up new scrips for both Jared and me, pay a parking ticket and two hospital bills, and run all over creation trying to get the immunization hold lifted off my Lesley file so I can fucking register for classes. Some of that stuff is still not quite resolved, and I'm still stressing over getting it all done rather than trying to start something new and productive.

- Got back my final packet for the semester with my teacher's comments. My one-act is pretty much a mess, which is discouraging. I never loved it and only wrote it because I had to, but still, I didn't think it was as flawed as all that. And I have no fucking clue how to fix it. For a variety of reasons, I am not feeling particularly good about my work right now, so now I'm stuck between wanting to generate more theatrical writing to redeem myself and never wanting to look at that shit again.

- I want to act again, or direct somewhere other than of out Hold Thy Peace's pity, but nobody will fucking cast me or pick me for it. I don't know what I'm not doing right. I hear other auditions that I don't think are as good as mine, and yet I never get cast. And the directing resumes I send out never come back. I guess I'm not as good as I thought I was, and I'm getting fed up with trying and never getting anywhere.

Quick status update

A quick rundown of the state of my busy, busy life:

- Merely Players goes into tech week next week. We're very close to being ready to go; the acting and blocking have come out extremely nicely. We just need a few more costume pieces and props, plus to hammer out preparations for the concessions we're going to sell. Fortunately lots of people have volunteered to help, I just need to finalize the plan and organize those lovely people into useful action. You should come see it on 11/11 and 11/12-- doors open at 7:15, so you can order drinks and snacks before the show!

- My last playwrighting assignment for the semester is also due next week. Bah to that timing, which means I am going to have to work like a madman to get it and all the play prep stuff done all at once. I have begun work on my one-act that I must prepare, and started on the reading and responding, but still I'm probably behind where I should be. I guess this weekend will have to be devoted to finishing.

- I signed up for Feast of the Minotaur as my first pick for Intercon. I am pleased with that; it sounds like a good game and it's already full, so it turned out to be the right choice. I'd ask all of you what you chose, but as a member of bidcom I get to look at the signup logs, which is pretty much my favorite thing in the world.

- Work is going well, though I am not finding it effortless to get up one hour earlier. I do like getting out earlier in the day, though. There is talk of switching me from contractor to direct employee status. I take it that means I'm doing something right. Is it too much to hope that they'll start just paying me all the extra they've been paying to my staffing company? ;-)

- I have put myself on a diet. I am trying to stay within thirteen hundred healthy calories a day thanks to a calorie counter, and buckling down on my efforts to practice ballet for exercise outside of class. The calorie counter is mostly helpful in that it keeps me mindful of whether or not that can of soda is really worth it, and encouraging me to make better choices because the numbers indicate the difference. I feel hungry, but it allows me to get in complete and balanced meals while eliminating room for snackings during the day, so it's probably a good range for me.

- After the next week or so I am going to need a nice long rest. Fortunately my break from school and the finishing of my theater run coincide nicely. Perhaps during that time I will get more rest and start to de-stress.

State of my Achilles tendon

My Achilles tendon seems to be improving, though it's not quite back to normal yet. It was kind of bothering me all this past week since class on Tuesday the 18th, in a way that suggested that it was just overworked rather than injured in one particular movement or act. Usually when I have a sore spot after physical activity that I'm not yet in the right condition for I just kind of go about my business and wait for it to go away, but tendons are delicate things, so I didn't want to treat it wrong. I asked Plesser, one of my few really athletic friends, what he suggested one should do to take care of such a thing, and he said ice, rest, and ibuprofen, warning me that if it becomes tendonitis I could be in a lot of trouble, maybe even do permanent damage. Well, that sure scared me; I'm usually one to just kind of work through it, but I really really don't want to do anything that would permanently ruin my body. Fortunately because of Margaret opening night I didn't go to the ballet class I usually would have on Thursday, meaning my tendon got a week off from the dance that did the damage. I followed Plesser's advice, resting it with ice when I could, but probably not as much as I should have. I also made sure to try the stretching exercise that in_water_writ* recommended, and in fact a good deep stretch tended to be the most immediate way to ease the pain. But to be honest, nothing I seemed to do, whether walking or resting or icing, really seemed to make it better or worse but time; it seemed to slowly improve over the course of the week.

I had ballet class again yesterday. I was pretty torn about going, as I don't want to miss too much class but I was afraid that dancing might hurt my tendon again, maybe even do real damage because it wasn't fully healed. I resolved to take it easy, particularly on the plies which I think were responsible for the injury in the first place; besides horseback riding where you have to keep your heels down, I can't think of much else your muscles are often called upon do that stretching for. In addition to not sinking as deeply into the bend (I have a pretty naturally strong plie so I can go decently low) I also stretched the tendons as thoroughly as I could beforehand. I think I should make a habit of that before every class to strengthen them and keep this from happening again. Fortunately with my precautions I think I can out okay. I still feel a little bit sore back there, but it really feels no worse than it did before going through class, so it was probably not monumentally stupid of me to try to dance on it. It's got some healing yet to do though. I will have to continue going easy on it and keep up the icing, being especially carefully to keep it stretched.

Things right now

Just finished my most recent blank verse assignment for school. I kind of hate it, but I think it satisfies the requirements. At this point that's the best I can hope for, while maybe I'll incidentally get better at generating unrhymed iambic pentameter. I do not much think this course study has made me much better a poet than I was before, so honestly I'm feeling like it was kind of a waste.

For my next regular playwrighting assignment I have to write a one-act play, which is supposed to be about an hour long. I have no idea what that will be about. I had a tough enough time figuring out stories to run just ten minutes. But I only have a few weeks to do it in, so I'll better get cracking.

Margaret opens tonight. I've seen the show at rehearsal several times now, but I'm going to try to attend as many performances as I can in order to support them (not to mention enlarge the audience.) There is also a photo call beforehand, which I'm going to try to be present for so I can take pictures of the costumes. I want to have them for my portfolio, and to e-mail to my mother.

I normally would have ballet tonight, but I want to be there for opening night. Also, my Achilles tendon is a little sore, presumably from pliés, and I really don't want to do permanent damage to it. Still, I hate missing class. I enjoy doing it, it's a great workout, and I don't want to fall behind in my learning. My progress has been spotty; some nights I feel like I'm improving and following along fairly well, some night I feel clumsy and weak. My arms are still ugly. I just wish I were better at remembering exactly what the exercises we do in class are so I can more effectively practice on my own between classes.

Today is a sad kind of day.

Random notes on Margaret costuming

Things go well. I would say we have about half of all the pieces we need, due to a vigorous scouring of the thrift store, club storage, and a raid of whatever might be useful in my own closet. I have found a bunch of military uniforms that will likely serve, though they all will require a little taking in to fit their wearers. Thus is the trouble with thrifting; selection is based on luck and you get whatever you find. But for the stage I know a couple quick fitting fixes; I find adding two darts in the back of a blazer do wonders for taking in across the chest and shoulders. There's also a bunch of cuffs I want to take up, both in sleeves and pant legs. These are minor fixes that I could even do with pins if I had to, but if I find the time to sew them that's probably better. Not bad for two days' work, eh?

Today me and the other two costumers are going to hit the army surplus store. I'm hoping to get the last handful of military jackets and suits there, as well as a few pairs of fatigues and maybe hats. That will hopefully finish off the major, "character-identifying" pieces. After that we would just need supplementary pieces like shirts to go under jackets, belts, and boots. Boots are always a pain, as nobody ever seems to have them and they're too expensive to buy new, so I guess we'll have to do one last thrift store raid to get anything even vaguely combat-like we can find.

I also need just a couple of color-specific things before I can nail done some final piece assigning. I have decided that the king of France and his sister Lady Bona will wear the same color, and that Gloucester and his wife the duchess will wear the same color. It's a small touch of my costuming theory that I can put in. To that end, I have procured two fancy dresses for the actresses arthoniel* and katiescarlett29*, one in dark green and the other in dark blue. The green is a dark forest stretch velour with criss-crossing straps in the back, the blue is iridescent with a cowl back borrowed from arthoniel*, the one she wore to the fancy party. Fortunately both of them fit into both. The deciding factor, then, will be what color military dress uniform I can find for nennivian*, who is playing the duke of Gloucester. I am planning on choosing this with care-- I want Charlotte to look good, and perhaps in solidarity for the efforts she has put into making her male performance, I want her costume to work with her performance as much as possible. I already have a number of other people in green or olive military pieces, and I'd like to have more contrast, so I think my preference is for blue, which means that I'd put Steph in the blue dress. In that case, Emma would wear the green and I will have to find a green dress shirt for Ben, who is playing the King of France. But if all I can get for Charlotte is a green dress uniform, it will have to be the other way around, and Ben will need a blue shirt.

The sizing on those dresses I eyeballed pretty nicely for Steph and Emma's bodies. I didn't do quite so well on another dress I bought, a diaphanous light blue gown with a drape over the bust. It was meant as another alternative for their costuming but didn't fit either of them. I should have known, based on how it fit me. I have an odd habit, you see, that when I'm costuming a show where any piece I'm considering buying I feel compelled to try on myself, even if it's intended for a person of a totally different size and shape from me. I guess the theory is if I know what body I'm trying to fit, I can extrapolate how it might work on them based on the differences between us once I see how it fits on a body like mine. This technique... does not always work. I think the fact that we're used to our own bodies as what's "normal" for us means that we don't always recognize the ways in which we're unusual, or at least not average. I sometimes don't have a good frame of reference for how much thinner I am than average, so if, say, a possible costume garment is a little bit too big on me, I might think it will fit someone who I perceive to only be a little bit bigger than me. Often in reality it ends up that because I am a good bit smaller than an average person, that average person I'm aiming to fit is going to need more than just a little bit bigger than me. Or I'll try to remember how much smaller I am, and think that something that's absolutely huge will be better filled out by a larger person, when in fact they are nowhere near that big. Thus this problem meant that light blue dress would not work as intended. Fortunately it ended up fitting Samantha, the girl who's playing Warrick, and will serve when she's playing a lady-in-waiting in the background. I had not been optimistic when I asked her to try it, and she is a tall statuesque girl, but I guess she doesn't have the same sort of bust or hips that made it unworkable for Emma and Steph.

Which brings me to another thing that always strikes me when costuming. When trying to find things for the best possible fit for the wide variety of the cast's forms, it becomes necessary to assess, and frankly discuss, the shapes of your actors' bodies. This is something that under normal circumstances I don't think people feel it's polite to do. When dressing actors, I will do it out of necessity with no critique or comment one way or the other, and then right after feel a little guilty about it as if I've said something rude. I think it's almost as if you are assumed in that case to be evaluating where it's no one's place to make value judgments about the bodies of others. But even though I must confess I have been known to make those judgments, in this process I have no trouble looking at everyone's shapes dispassionately. You can't really dress people properly unless you look at this stuff. If someone can't fit into a dress because of their hips, I need to be aware of that in order to find something that will accommodate those hips. If someone doesn't have the shoulders to fill out a jacket and they look swallowed by it, then I need a jacket to fit narrower shoulders. Even though in other cases it might be considered focusing on things that might be perceived as flaws, in this case it is appropriate, and without judgment.

Related to this, comparing people's measurements is an interesting way to see the differences in how people are built. I find it fascinating that a six-foot guy can have a 27" inseam, and a five-nine girl can have a 30" inseam. Though it occurs to me that I should have taken slightly different measures. I learned how to take measurements based on seamstress's techniques, which are more useful if you are making the garment yourself than if you are trying to find it in ready-to-wear. Wish I'd measured the men, or women playing men, around the chest rather than just sleeve and shoulders, because that's the usual sizing by which jackets and blazers are sold.

Got a ton done in just a short amount of time. Here's hoping today's trip is equally productive.