23 November 2010
06 October 2010
chuck taylor and the quest for authenticity.
Recently my lack of casual close-toed shoes compelled me to invest in a third (in my life) pair of converse. I chose white for various reasons, and immediately upon exiting the store I began the process of dirtying them up. The color is only relevant because white emphasizes how new and clean the shoes are more than the other colors. Anyway, the last time I purchased a pair of converse I was thirteen and couldn't be bothered about why I preferred them dirty. These days though, I over think everything, so here comes my analysis of dirty shoes vs. clean shoes with regard to racial subcultures.
When I use the words "white" and "black" here, it is in reference to the particular cultures associated with the races. I recognize that differing skin tones exist within these subcultures. I wish that the cultures were not so inextricably linked to race in our minds, but I do not know how to best alter this and will use "black" and "white" for simplicity's sake.
The Converse Chuck Taylor is a universal shoe. I see it on the feet of people of all different races and ages. But I've noticed that we all tend to wear them differently. People who identify with black culture seem to like to keep their shoes clean. Once, a kid on my bus wore grocery bags over his to keep them clean because it was raining and they were new. I don't know why this is, and I'm not going to try to figure it out right now. I'm just throwing it out there to illustrate difference. The shoes I want to talk about are the ones on the feet of dirty white kids.
I'm sure you had these kids at your high school: white, upper middle class, into "alternative" rock. Uniform: jeans, band t-shirt, messy hair, beat down chuck taylors. I was one of them (for a little while). I got my first pair of chucks in seventh grade--royal blue. You see, it was very important that you had chucks, but more important that you did not have the same color as "everyone else." And let me tell you: as soon as I purchased royal blue, I started seeing them everywhere. I got black in eighth grade just to give myself more options. It was also important to have multiple pairs.
There were so many little rules, but above all else, your shoes had to be old and dirty. Walking around in a pair of shiny new converse made you look stupid. We might even throw around the word 'poseur,' though none of us ever spelled it correctly. There was this ridiculous obsession with originality, legitimacy, and authenticity. You had to like a band before they wound up on MTV or you didn't really like them, and if a band you liked did wind up on MTV (as was inevitable--our tastes weren't all that left of center) it was the end of the world. If your converse were old and dirty, it signified that you had been a part of the scene for a long time. If you had a Ramones shirt, you got bonus points. We hated our parents for being square, and yet, were attempting to align ourselves with the rock subculture of their generation! We weren't even radical or violent. We were just dumb kids who dressed a certain way.
I have since gotten over my false musical elitism (sort of), but I still find myself with an appreciation for the old and beat down. I am comfortably middle class with a free ride at school and plenty of mom's money to spend, yet I still dress in such a way that makes it look as though I have none. A lot of my clothes cost between fifty cents and five dollars at Goodwill, and having a shiny new pair of converse makes me intensely uncomfortable. Am I afraid of looking like I have money? Are privilege and authenticity mutually exclusive?
I'm not entirely sure what I mean by "authenticity," but I know I am not the only one experiencing this. Ever heard of a hipster? I often joke that hipsters are people who spend a lot of money to make it look like they spent very little. This is why Urban Outfitters is so popular--it's full of the clothes people wish they had the patience, luck, and skill to thrift. I think the practice of paying high prices for destroyed denim is similar.
Why are middle and upper middle white people so obsessed with looking like they don't have any money?
When I use the words "white" and "black" here, it is in reference to the particular cultures associated with the races. I recognize that differing skin tones exist within these subcultures. I wish that the cultures were not so inextricably linked to race in our minds, but I do not know how to best alter this and will use "black" and "white" for simplicity's sake.
The Converse Chuck Taylor is a universal shoe. I see it on the feet of people of all different races and ages. But I've noticed that we all tend to wear them differently. People who identify with black culture seem to like to keep their shoes clean. Once, a kid on my bus wore grocery bags over his to keep them clean because it was raining and they were new. I don't know why this is, and I'm not going to try to figure it out right now. I'm just throwing it out there to illustrate difference. The shoes I want to talk about are the ones on the feet of dirty white kids.
I'm sure you had these kids at your high school: white, upper middle class, into "alternative" rock. Uniform: jeans, band t-shirt, messy hair, beat down chuck taylors. I was one of them (for a little while). I got my first pair of chucks in seventh grade--royal blue. You see, it was very important that you had chucks, but more important that you did not have the same color as "everyone else." And let me tell you: as soon as I purchased royal blue, I started seeing them everywhere. I got black in eighth grade just to give myself more options. It was also important to have multiple pairs.
There were so many little rules, but above all else, your shoes had to be old and dirty. Walking around in a pair of shiny new converse made you look stupid. We might even throw around the word 'poseur,' though none of us ever spelled it correctly. There was this ridiculous obsession with originality, legitimacy, and authenticity. You had to like a band before they wound up on MTV or you didn't really like them, and if a band you liked did wind up on MTV (as was inevitable--our tastes weren't all that left of center) it was the end of the world. If your converse were old and dirty, it signified that you had been a part of the scene for a long time. If you had a Ramones shirt, you got bonus points. We hated our parents for being square, and yet, were attempting to align ourselves with the rock subculture of their generation! We weren't even radical or violent. We were just dumb kids who dressed a certain way.
I have since gotten over my false musical elitism (sort of), but I still find myself with an appreciation for the old and beat down. I am comfortably middle class with a free ride at school and plenty of mom's money to spend, yet I still dress in such a way that makes it look as though I have none. A lot of my clothes cost between fifty cents and five dollars at Goodwill, and having a shiny new pair of converse makes me intensely uncomfortable. Am I afraid of looking like I have money? Are privilege and authenticity mutually exclusive?
I'm not entirely sure what I mean by "authenticity," but I know I am not the only one experiencing this. Ever heard of a hipster? I often joke that hipsters are people who spend a lot of money to make it look like they spent very little. This is why Urban Outfitters is so popular--it's full of the clothes people wish they had the patience, luck, and skill to thrift. I think the practice of paying high prices for destroyed denim is similar.
Why are middle and upper middle white people so obsessed with looking like they don't have any money?
02 September 2010
home improvements
I need to find a balance between militant and precious.
And to dissociate appearances from personalities.
And stop being so prejudiced against Christians.
I'd say I haven't really been feeling myself lately, but as I've never been too sure of who I am, I don't really know what myself feels like.
This is the effect of being at my mom's house, I think. All I do here is watch TV.
And to dissociate appearances from personalities.
And stop being so prejudiced against Christians.
I'd say I haven't really been feeling myself lately, but as I've never been too sure of who I am, I don't really know what myself feels like.
This is the effect of being at my mom's house, I think. All I do here is watch TV.
19 August 2010
a fat girl's guide to feeling good
This stuff applies to everyone who has ever had a negative thought about their bodies; I am just writing from the perspective of having been an overweight female for over half of my life because we're the ones who are most openly and constantly told we don't look good as we are and should feel bad about it.
1- Cut the crap. You are what you eat; so if you want to start feeling good about yourself, you need to stop eating junk food. Fats and oils bog you down. Sugar makes you crash. Salt makes you bloat. Feeling bad physically easily translates to negative emotions, and let's be honest here: you're probably eating junk according to your feelings to begin with. When you have pure, healthy, and wonderful foods running through your body, you feel pure, healthy, and wonderful yourself. I know because I've made the switch. If you need more convincing, start paying attention to how you feel (both physically and emotionally) before, while, and after you eat something. When I eat junk the cycle usually goes like this: feeling bad, lazy, or bored; eat some junk and feel good while its going down (I think the act of eating releases endorphins or something similar); feel gross and guilty; eat more junk; rinse and repeat. So positive, right? The cycle should be this: feel hungry; eat healthy snack; feel satisfied.
2- Move. If you sit around all day like a lump, you will feel like a lump. You don't have to run a marathon. You don't even have to jog a mile. Just get up and move your body around. Take a walk. Walking is easy and enjoyable. You can walk around a park, a city, a mall--I'm not picky. Well, I'd prefer you didn't walk around a mall, but I'll save my anti-consumerist rant for another day. One of the reasons people who are overweight or obese feel so bad is that we are blamed for it. We're only fat because we're lazy, right? Well you can't be accused of being lazy if you're not, so get off your butt. Leading and active and healthy life will help you feel better about your body because you'll start to focus on what it can do rather than what it looks like and you'll begin to realize that any fat you do have on your body isn't solely there because of the sedentary lifestyle you no longer live. Genetics plays a huge and uncontrollable role in body type, and size is almost completely irrelevant to health.
3- Lose five pounds. I don't care if your doctor says you have to lose 20, 50, or 100 pounds to reach a healthy weight. Setting huge goals like that without smaller goals along the way will just discourage you from even trying because it seems so impossible. Five pounds are easily dropped in two to four weeks, especially if you make the above changes, and a five pound weight loss feels phenomenal if you let it. Clothes that fit before will be a little looser, and you'll be able to squeeze into things that were just a little too tight before. Hitting a smaller goal like that will encourage you to stick with the lifestyle changes you've made and maybe even push a little harder. The important thing is, though, that you don't put the focus on losing weight. This can lead to eating disorders or just general negative feelings because if and when you don't meet your weight loss goals, you will get discouraged. Instead focus on how much easier it is to walk up that hill from last week and how good it feels to be a little bit sore the next day. Focus on how you feel, not how you look. When you feel good, you look better automatically.
4- Turn off the TV. Not only does watching TV mean long hours of sitting still, it means exposure to a world in which everyone is tiny unless its a plot device that they're not. The only media I've seen lately that fights that is the Fit for Me Fruit of the Loom commercial that depicts women who have fat as sexy, beautiful, and desirable without question. Even the Disney Channel, which is supposed to be full of role models for young girls, had me feeling bad after a few too many episodes of Jonas LA because the main character is very small with very prominent collar bones. Not since That's So Raven has the Disney channel had a star who didn't fall into the category of skinny white girl (yes, I know Selena Gomez is half latin and Brenda Song is Asian, but their body types are still the same). Every other network is just as bad. ABC Family has Huge, but fat is still just a plot device on that show. Constant exposure to a world that is 95% skinny white girls, 4% skinny racially abiguous girls, and 1% girls whose fat is a plot device will make you feel othered. It is really really hard to fight a message that subtle unless you just avoid it all together or seriously limit your exposure.
5- Change the way you think about fat. I've posted about this before, but I realized last night that fat is a thing you can have, not a thing you can be. Do not ever say, "I am fat." Say instead, "I have fat." Because everybody has fat, saying that you have it is not so othering. Thinking of is this way will help you remove some of the negative connotations of the word. Fat is not and should not be a part of your identity, so saying you are fat is just a little bit ridiculous. Having fat does not make you lazy. It does not make you ugly. It does not make you undesireable. You may think no one could ever be attracted to you, but chances are you've just blinded yourself to the signs. That boy I hooked up with? Apparently we both had huge crushes on each other in high school but I was too concerned with being a dyke to realize I liked him and too entrenched in hating my body to think he could possibly like me. But he did. And he was still attracted to me four years later and two sizes bigger. And maybe you haven't been as lucky yet to be openly persued (even if it was just the one time), but consider the number of people you've been attracted to and never done anything about. I'm betting there has been someone who found you attractive, beautiful, kinda cute, but people don't just walk up to strangers on the street to tell them they think they look good. Maybe they should.
I'm not a doctor or any kind of official expert, but I know this stuff works. I've been reminded by doctors, family, friends, and boys on the bus--kindly and not so kindly--that I am overweight since I was nine years old. I've been told I was fat and therefore not good enough for more than half my life. That's a huge amount of baggage weighing me down (pun not originally intended but totally supported). But in just the last three months I've started making these changes and I have never been more in love with my body or my self. I just feel good all the time. Well, most of the time. But its still a huge (oh my god, I love puns) improvement over the hatred I used to feel for myself and almost everybody else. None of us can be perfectly in love with our bodies all the time, but I hope we can all start to feel as good as I've felt recently. And if we stop letting the media and anonymous assholes on the internet tell us how we should feel, I think we can make it happen. Be positive, y'all!
I can't believe I just said y'all. Ok, I can. But don't hold it against me. :)
1- Cut the crap. You are what you eat; so if you want to start feeling good about yourself, you need to stop eating junk food. Fats and oils bog you down. Sugar makes you crash. Salt makes you bloat. Feeling bad physically easily translates to negative emotions, and let's be honest here: you're probably eating junk according to your feelings to begin with. When you have pure, healthy, and wonderful foods running through your body, you feel pure, healthy, and wonderful yourself. I know because I've made the switch. If you need more convincing, start paying attention to how you feel (both physically and emotionally) before, while, and after you eat something. When I eat junk the cycle usually goes like this: feeling bad, lazy, or bored; eat some junk and feel good while its going down (I think the act of eating releases endorphins or something similar); feel gross and guilty; eat more junk; rinse and repeat. So positive, right? The cycle should be this: feel hungry; eat healthy snack; feel satisfied.
2- Move. If you sit around all day like a lump, you will feel like a lump. You don't have to run a marathon. You don't even have to jog a mile. Just get up and move your body around. Take a walk. Walking is easy and enjoyable. You can walk around a park, a city, a mall--I'm not picky. Well, I'd prefer you didn't walk around a mall, but I'll save my anti-consumerist rant for another day. One of the reasons people who are overweight or obese feel so bad is that we are blamed for it. We're only fat because we're lazy, right? Well you can't be accused of being lazy if you're not, so get off your butt. Leading and active and healthy life will help you feel better about your body because you'll start to focus on what it can do rather than what it looks like and you'll begin to realize that any fat you do have on your body isn't solely there because of the sedentary lifestyle you no longer live. Genetics plays a huge and uncontrollable role in body type, and size is almost completely irrelevant to health.
3- Lose five pounds. I don't care if your doctor says you have to lose 20, 50, or 100 pounds to reach a healthy weight. Setting huge goals like that without smaller goals along the way will just discourage you from even trying because it seems so impossible. Five pounds are easily dropped in two to four weeks, especially if you make the above changes, and a five pound weight loss feels phenomenal if you let it. Clothes that fit before will be a little looser, and you'll be able to squeeze into things that were just a little too tight before. Hitting a smaller goal like that will encourage you to stick with the lifestyle changes you've made and maybe even push a little harder. The important thing is, though, that you don't put the focus on losing weight. This can lead to eating disorders or just general negative feelings because if and when you don't meet your weight loss goals, you will get discouraged. Instead focus on how much easier it is to walk up that hill from last week and how good it feels to be a little bit sore the next day. Focus on how you feel, not how you look. When you feel good, you look better automatically.
4- Turn off the TV. Not only does watching TV mean long hours of sitting still, it means exposure to a world in which everyone is tiny unless its a plot device that they're not. The only media I've seen lately that fights that is the Fit for Me Fruit of the Loom commercial that depicts women who have fat as sexy, beautiful, and desirable without question. Even the Disney Channel, which is supposed to be full of role models for young girls, had me feeling bad after a few too many episodes of Jonas LA because the main character is very small with very prominent collar bones. Not since That's So Raven has the Disney channel had a star who didn't fall into the category of skinny white girl (yes, I know Selena Gomez is half latin and Brenda Song is Asian, but their body types are still the same). Every other network is just as bad. ABC Family has Huge, but fat is still just a plot device on that show. Constant exposure to a world that is 95% skinny white girls, 4% skinny racially abiguous girls, and 1% girls whose fat is a plot device will make you feel othered. It is really really hard to fight a message that subtle unless you just avoid it all together or seriously limit your exposure.
5- Change the way you think about fat. I've posted about this before, but I realized last night that fat is a thing you can have, not a thing you can be. Do not ever say, "I am fat." Say instead, "I have fat." Because everybody has fat, saying that you have it is not so othering. Thinking of is this way will help you remove some of the negative connotations of the word. Fat is not and should not be a part of your identity, so saying you are fat is just a little bit ridiculous. Having fat does not make you lazy. It does not make you ugly. It does not make you undesireable. You may think no one could ever be attracted to you, but chances are you've just blinded yourself to the signs. That boy I hooked up with? Apparently we both had huge crushes on each other in high school but I was too concerned with being a dyke to realize I liked him and too entrenched in hating my body to think he could possibly like me. But he did. And he was still attracted to me four years later and two sizes bigger. And maybe you haven't been as lucky yet to be openly persued (even if it was just the one time), but consider the number of people you've been attracted to and never done anything about. I'm betting there has been someone who found you attractive, beautiful, kinda cute, but people don't just walk up to strangers on the street to tell them they think they look good. Maybe they should.
I'm not a doctor or any kind of official expert, but I know this stuff works. I've been reminded by doctors, family, friends, and boys on the bus--kindly and not so kindly--that I am overweight since I was nine years old. I've been told I was fat and therefore not good enough for more than half my life. That's a huge amount of baggage weighing me down (pun not originally intended but totally supported). But in just the last three months I've started making these changes and I have never been more in love with my body or my self. I just feel good all the time. Well, most of the time. But its still a huge (oh my god, I love puns) improvement over the hatred I used to feel for myself and almost everybody else. None of us can be perfectly in love with our bodies all the time, but I hope we can all start to feel as good as I've felt recently. And if we stop letting the media and anonymous assholes on the internet tell us how we should feel, I think we can make it happen. Be positive, y'all!
I can't believe I just said y'all. Ok, I can. But don't hold it against me. :)
11 August 2010
i kissed a boy and i liked it.
Ok. So if you've known me at all over the past four years, especially if you knew me during the last two years of high school (hell, if you just went to my high school--I had it emblazoned on my damn tshirt), you'd know that I've long identified as a big ol' MO. Lesbian, dyke, gay, I like women, etc. "But wait!" you say, "your post title says you kissed a boy!" Well, folks, that's what we're going to talk about today: my long and mildly stupid journey to realizing that gender doesn't matter. I repeat: GENDER DOESN'T MATTER. But I have a feeling most of you already know that. On to my blabbering.
When I was fourteen or so I started to realized that I was attracted to girls, and considering my very long and very vocal history of obsessing over boys this concerned me. Well, it actually didn't bother me that I liked girls. Not for long anyway. I wasn't homophobic. I loved my gays! I just never thought I'd be one of them. A year or two and many angsty journal entries later (I think I like girls... But I still like boys! Oh, what to do????) I started coming out as gay to a few friends, then everyone I met, then my family. I was uncomfortable with the word "lesbian" and very uncomfortable with the idea of being bisexual. It came with so many nasty, slutty, attention seeking connotations. I certainly wasn't going to be bisexual. No sir. Not me. I like girls only.
If there's one thing at which I excel, its convincing myself of things that aren't true. I knew I was still attracted to men and I have the journal entries to prove it, but I desperately suppressed those feelings to avoid the bisexual label. This is why I am convinced that every person who claims homosexuality is a choice is not only right on some level, but also bisexual. Everyone who isn't a zero or a six on the Kinsey scale really sort of does have a choice--though it is much healthier to not make it. Anyway, I eventually made myself comfortable with the words that meant I was a woman who like women. Only. How disgustingly limiting of me.
This summer I've been focusing a lot on being more honest with myself and more open to everything really, and I've finally gotten to the point where I can appreciate the differences biological sex has to offer, but ultimately the gender of the person I'm with doesn't matter. So, yeah. I hooked up with a dude last week. And it was great. Who would have thought I'd get my hands on a man before they ever touched a lady? Not me (well, a little). Certainly not anyone who's ever seen me wear my 'PS, I'm a Lesbian' tshirt.
My point is: hook up with or date or whatever who you're attracted to, and don't worry about their gender, or their parts, or what it means for your sexual identity. Still be responsible about sex though!
I'm so over the whole concept of sexual identity. The idea didn't even exist until a couple hundred years ago anyway. Greek and Roman men hooked up with dudes and it didn't make them gay or bisexual. Those words didn't exist. Those ideas didn't exist. Ok, it was a bit more complicated than that, but you can find out for yourself. I no longer claim the term 'lesbian' to describe myself, and I'm not going for 'bisexual' either. 'Gay' is cool because its a bit more open, but those labels, while handy, really only reinforce the gender binary. A woman who likes women. A man who likes men. A man or woman who likes men and women. WHO CARES? I'm a person who likes people. And if you must label me, I guess you can call me queer.
I tried to explain the concept of queer to some fifteen year old boys I ran into at the playground last night, and of course I couldn't. But maybe that's the beauty of it. A label that doesn't mean anything but also means everything. Those of us who claim queer cannot be pinned down. I'm starting to get the feeling that this is even bigger, even more radical, and even more lifechanging than we ever imagined. And we thought it was pretty big already.
If you don't know what I mean when I say "queer," the Wikipedia article on the subject is actually surprisingly spot on to the definition my wonderfully intelligent and radical Charleston friends have come to.
When I was fourteen or so I started to realized that I was attracted to girls, and considering my very long and very vocal history of obsessing over boys this concerned me. Well, it actually didn't bother me that I liked girls. Not for long anyway. I wasn't homophobic. I loved my gays! I just never thought I'd be one of them. A year or two and many angsty journal entries later (I think I like girls... But I still like boys! Oh, what to do????) I started coming out as gay to a few friends, then everyone I met, then my family. I was uncomfortable with the word "lesbian" and very uncomfortable with the idea of being bisexual. It came with so many nasty, slutty, attention seeking connotations. I certainly wasn't going to be bisexual. No sir. Not me. I like girls only.
If there's one thing at which I excel, its convincing myself of things that aren't true. I knew I was still attracted to men and I have the journal entries to prove it, but I desperately suppressed those feelings to avoid the bisexual label. This is why I am convinced that every person who claims homosexuality is a choice is not only right on some level, but also bisexual. Everyone who isn't a zero or a six on the Kinsey scale really sort of does have a choice--though it is much healthier to not make it. Anyway, I eventually made myself comfortable with the words that meant I was a woman who like women. Only. How disgustingly limiting of me.
This summer I've been focusing a lot on being more honest with myself and more open to everything really, and I've finally gotten to the point where I can appreciate the differences biological sex has to offer, but ultimately the gender of the person I'm with doesn't matter. So, yeah. I hooked up with a dude last week. And it was great. Who would have thought I'd get my hands on a man before they ever touched a lady? Not me (well, a little). Certainly not anyone who's ever seen me wear my 'PS, I'm a Lesbian' tshirt.
My point is: hook up with or date or whatever who you're attracted to, and don't worry about their gender, or their parts, or what it means for your sexual identity. Still be responsible about sex though!
I'm so over the whole concept of sexual identity. The idea didn't even exist until a couple hundred years ago anyway. Greek and Roman men hooked up with dudes and it didn't make them gay or bisexual. Those words didn't exist. Those ideas didn't exist. Ok, it was a bit more complicated than that, but you can find out for yourself. I no longer claim the term 'lesbian' to describe myself, and I'm not going for 'bisexual' either. 'Gay' is cool because its a bit more open, but those labels, while handy, really only reinforce the gender binary. A woman who likes women. A man who likes men. A man or woman who likes men and women. WHO CARES? I'm a person who likes people. And if you must label me, I guess you can call me queer.
I tried to explain the concept of queer to some fifteen year old boys I ran into at the playground last night, and of course I couldn't. But maybe that's the beauty of it. A label that doesn't mean anything but also means everything. Those of us who claim queer cannot be pinned down. I'm starting to get the feeling that this is even bigger, even more radical, and even more lifechanging than we ever imagined. And we thought it was pretty big already.
If you don't know what I mean when I say "queer," the Wikipedia article on the subject is actually surprisingly spot on to the definition my wonderfully intelligent and radical Charleston friends have come to.
05 August 2010
revelations
Bloggo on hold till Monday due to travels. In the interim, a revelation:
Gender doesn't matter.
California agrees.
And on that note, did it ever bother anyone else that only the men had to sign up for the draft when we were high school seniors? It bothered me, but I kept quiet since it worked in my favor. But don't we want equality on all fronts?
Gender doesn't matter.
California agrees.
And on that note, did it ever bother anyone else that only the men had to sign up for the draft when we were high school seniors? It bothered me, but I kept quiet since it worked in my favor. But don't we want equality on all fronts?
02 August 2010
my boys
See further details on my other blog: better consciousness.
My "professional" camera wasn't allowed inside the venue, so I couldn't get any shots of the actual show. But it was nice because it meant I got to really experience the event (best show I've ever been to, btw) rather than get caught up in recording it.
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