things I might forget

Week 4, part 4!

2012-01-28T09:23:00.000-06:00

I know I wasn't going to weight-blog on weekends. And I'm not supposed to make any change pronouncements until the end of the week. Because anything the scale says today is unlikely to be higher than what it says Monday morning.

But, damn. It said 207. Which makes this the first morning I hit ten pounds.

HELL

YEAH

Earthquake Prevention

2012-01-27T16:56:00.000-06:00

When the sign says, Congratulations on a Safe Work Space-- 146 days since the last accident, we like to think that it's because we're doing something right. We are keeping the bad things at bay.

But, most of the time, it's more like saying, Congratulations on a sturdy house!-- 3 years since it last fell down, when it's just that it's been three years since the last earthquake. Congratulations, it's been 3 years since the last earthquake. We're doing such a good job at stopping earthquakes.

My house is not sturdy. I am not practicing earthquake prevention. I am not any closer to the person I want to be, I just hadn't been shown otherwise.

This is not the letter I am going to write.

Week 4, part 3: More Data

2012-01-27T08:18:00.000-06:00

As of this morning, 209 pounds. Which isn't so bad, really. Less than 1/2 pound more than yesterday, and I got to spend some time oh so full of Thai food. I have no plans for the weekend, which means it shouldn't be hard to lose a little more. (Next weekend, sushi afternoon and party dinner, yikes!)

Where You Are Depends on Where You're From

2012-01-26T15:02:00.001-06:00

One of many delightful things I have discovered in Iowa is 50° weather. Here's the thing about 50° weather: On the first day it hits 50°, some time in the spring (or, sometimes, a freak day in the middle of January), it's a miracle. I walk outside in my short sleeves, and I'm not cold. And when it's been months of cold, that feels like a miracle.

On the first day that it hits 50°, some time in autumn (or a freak day in August), it means I can finally wear my hoodie, or layer my shirts, or tall socks. I go outside and love the chill on my face, because it feels so good to feel cold.

And, yeah, I get those feelings sometimes at 45° or 55°, and when it's 50° and dreary outside I might not be so ecstatic. But, to me, 50° means change, it means something new is coming. Even when it's something I've seen before, by the time it comes around again, I feel like I've forgotten.

What's funny about all this is that I really do feel cold when it's 50° in Autumn, and I really do feel warm when it's 50° in spring. I'm not actually thinking "comared to that, this is warm." I am simply warm. Or cold.

Last summer, I spent about 3-4 weeks working on losing weight. I started at 212, and made it down to 200 before I stopped. And when I started, 212 was monsterously fat. I couldn't stand to wear anything but the baggiest of t-shirts. At 200 I felt like I had made a difference, and I felt good showing off.

Today, I am only barely past 212, but because I started at 217, it doesn't seem so monsterous. The way I look right now feels like an accomplishment, even though six months ago it was a failure.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: context. It matters.

miscellaneous

2012-01-26T11:58:00.000-06:00

Today, someone found my blog by googleing "i seldom kill people."

This morning, within the space of five minutes, my scale weighed me at (in order):

209.2
209.6
209.6
208.6
208.6

Apparently it was a very eventful five minutes. This is unusual, and worries me, because even though I know my scale is cheap and therefore not entirely accurate, I don't like to think about it making mistakes. And this is so clearly a mistake. (I decided, of course, to write down 208.6 pounds.)

I have a sketch for my tattoo. It brings me joy. The layout and a lot of the decisions were taken from old Navy tattoos (not to be confused with Old Navy tattoos), and the tattoo artist has worked on nearly everyone I know in Iowa City. I feel like this is my grounding tattoo, my connection to other things. To history, of sorts, because there are traditions I am referencing, to my home in Iowa City, to my body, because I feel as if I am claiming it. I am decorating, therefore I am moving in, for real, and not just passing through.

I have decided against the Ansay quote. It resonates with me, but isn't something I want to focus on. On the other hand, I am quite pleased by the poem. I like that it's odd, and it even feels a bit irreverent, although I'm not sure I could explain why. I like the idea of it, celebrating unexpected beauty, celebrating the now. I've never thought "this is my favorite poem," but I've remembered it for the 13 or so years since I first read it, and I always enjoy it when I go back to it. When I first thought, "hey, let's think about text, what poems do I like?" It was the first that came to mind. I mean, I like Plath, I like her a lot. I think she does amazing things with language. But I am not going to get a Sylvia Plath tattoo.

I think that I would put each stanza on a leg, starting at the back of my thigh and moving down. It means that one leg will have more than the other, and I like that. I think that one should have an illustration, something with an oval border, a tree in a meadow. Something like a John R. Neill illustration. (Oz wouldn't be the same without him.)

ouch

2012-01-24T15:00:00.000-06:00

My mouth hurts because when I don't wear my tooth for a long time (like an entire weekend, oops), then my teeth start to shift, and the denture acts like a retainer and pushes my teeth back in place, which hurts, and by the end of the day I'm achy and grumpy. And my toes hurt because I have new shoes, and they haven't stretched out yet and I have ridiculously wide feet.

Oh yeah, and I have a meeting with my tattoo artist tomorrow to look at a first draft of the tattoo. And it just occurred to me that it might hurt. I forget that, because the other one didn't hurt. Not in a "oh I toughed it out" kind of way, in a "pain is not the right word for that slightly odd scratching feeling" kind of way. I'm assuming that boob-area, being all fleshy, won't be that sensitive, but then I don't know how close to my clavicle it will go. So, you know, there might actually be pain in my future. And in case you missed it, I suck at pain. I don't tough things out. I scream and yell and cry.

And while we're at it, it's time to start thinking about what I want to put on my legs. I'm thinking about text. I'm throwing up ideas on the walls of my brain and seeing what I'd like to live with.

Things like,

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

"The Two-Headed Calf," by Laura Gilpin

and,

I was filled with what I'd felt as I crossed the tracks, just after that moment when I knew I wouldn't make it: the unexpected relief that I'd been wrong.

from "Read This and Tell Me What it Says," by A. Manette Ansay

Week 4, part 2: Shivering Isles

2012-01-24T08:27:00.000-06:00

As of this morning, 209 pounds. I didn't go to pub knit last night, partly because I just bought Oblivion for the Xbox and wanted to get to the Shivering Isles, and partly because I'd just gotten home from talking to the night classes in ABW and felt like it had already been a long day, but also partly because I thought I might make good choices about food if I went, but I knew I would make good choices about food if I stayed. And I've been trying really hard to not think about this in terms of shame. The world is full of shame enough for a million fat girls; I don't need to add any of my own. But one more day of weight gain would feel like one more day of failure, and I couldn't stand the thought of it.

Week 4, part 1: Reckoning

2012-01-23T08:09:00.003-06:00

8am, Monday. 212 pounds. Gain this week, 3 pounds. Total loss, 5 pounds.

I just want one thing to be right. I want something to work. I want to feel like there is something I am not failing at.

breathing again

2012-01-19T15:47:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, it feels like a miracle.

Week 3, part 3: Not over yet

2012-01-19T08:59:00.000-06:00

211 pounds again this morning. Technically, it was 211.8 on Tuesday, 211.0 on Wednesday, and 211.2 today. And it's not like I don't know why I'm not losing weight. I stuffed myself on bar food on Monday. I had the leftovers from that for dinner yesterday. I'm saving the world from evil robots instead of conquering Dance Central. It's 8:40 am, and I already want to go back to bed. I'm tired and unhappy. And I just want the next week and a half to be over, already.

Week 3, part 2: Classes begin

2012-01-17T09:20:00.000-06:00

Things I probably shouldn't have done right before classes start:

1. Lose my phone.

2. Eat myself sick.

3. Run out of anti-depressants.

On the other hand, I am pleased to announce that I have saved the universe from evil robots.

Week 3, part 1: Another Reckoning

2012-01-16T11:15:00.000-06:00

10:30 am, Monday. 209 pounds. Loss this week: 5 pounds. Total loss: 8 pounds.

This week I learned that when I am invited to a party with large quantities of really good food, eating a small meal directly beforehand so that I won't eat there doesn't necessarily work.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Next time, don't let myself even have a few snacks? It's easier to maintain an extreme position than a moderate one. Next time, go late enough that people won't really be eating? Sucks when the party revolves around watching a TV show together. Maybe do like Emily does and bring my own special food so I have something to snack on while everyone is eating, but it's veggies & low-cal dipping sauce? I can still eat too much of that, but at least it won't do as much damage as eating too much fajitas.

On the other hand, I was also reminded that what goes on in a day can be taken off in two. Real disasters take time.

Hearts

2012-01-15T16:57:00.003-06:00

A list of things I like in heart tattoos:

bright colors
gradients in the heart
birds
flowers
curliques

Things I don't like in heart tattoos:

wings
crosses
flames
knives/arrows
cherubs
thorns/barbed wire

This is what I do when I should be plugging in the projector and making sure it works.

I heart things.

2012-01-15T10:33:00.001-06:00

So, you know how I was saying that I built up "being fat" as the thing stopping me from all these things I want? Here's one example.

I have a tattoo. It looks like this:

I got it when I was 19, at Dragon Moon in Glen Burnie, Maryland. It's part of this Escher print:

And, pretty much since I got the tattoo, I have been aware of how it could be better. It's not that I don't like it, it's that I know how I'd like it more. I wanted the tattoo to fade in and out of skin, rather than have such a distinct line between the filled-in water areas and my skin. Sort of like this:

(Please excuse the sloppy Photoshop. I think you get the idea.)

So, for the last 13 years, I've had this "some day I'll fix my tattoo" in my head. But first there was the problem of having the cash and not having other things I wanted more. And then, once I started losing weight, my "someday tattoo" plans got mixed up with that, and it wasn't just "when I have the money," but "when I like my body." Or "when I get thin." It was one of the rewards I set up for myself for when I succeeded at my weight loss goals. And any other tattoos I might want have to wait until I fix the one I have.

And I was talking to my friend Fenna, who has many gorgeous tattoos, and is planning some more, and I was so very jealous. Because I want more tattoos. And I was explaining why I can't get more tattoos, because first I have to do this, and then this, and wait for this. And I finally decided that I didn't want to follow the rules I made up because I felt like I should.

So I'm getting a tattoo. I am getting a new tattoo before I fix the old one. I am getting a bright red heart with a banner and possibly flowers or birds on my left boob. And I am leaving the banner blank so I can write in whatever I feel like heart-ing for the day. And, yeah, it's a joke tattoo, which I would have told you was not a good idea. But I've liked the idea for, oh, five or six years so far. And I want it. And I've decided that I can have it.

for the shoebox

2012-01-13T08:38:00.000-06:00

I haven’t spoken to her in five years. I haven’t seen her in six. I try to remember her last phone call, but what I remember instead is lying on the floor of our dorm room with my head in her lap while she strokes my hair. Her fingers carve grooves along my scalp like rivers flowing from my temple to my neck. Her hands are as small as mine, but hers are thin and elegant. She doesn’t bite her nails.

I am waiting for the epiphany. Where I realize that I have moved on. I have to move on. But there is no epiphany, and I can't let go. All I have is this: a love letter to my best friend, which is really a love letter to the two of us at eighteen, alone in the dark on the third floor of Gallagher Hall, two girls in twin beds whispering secrets across the room. Those girls are lost now, grown strange and old. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to find them again.

Post 441

2012-01-13T08:25:00.000-06:00

3 years, and 440 posts later, I have decided that I am tired of duplicating my blog. Those of you who read this on flickr, please come see it at blogspot.

Thank you.

oh.

2012-01-13T01:18:00.001-06:00

I sleep in a converted attic. It’s the biggest bedroom, but also the shortest; I am five feet tall, and I can’t walk from one end of the room to the other without hitting my head. My housemates are both much taller than I am, and didn’t fight me for the room. When I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, the light from my room makes a straight path to the bathroom. I like the way my light looks from the bottom of the stairs.

I grew up in a single story ranch house. I remember the floor was carpeted in soil-colored shag carpet. I remember that the outside was white stucco, and the ceilings were soft and lumpy. When I slept on the top of a bunk bed, I could reach up and brush off bits of ceiling onto my blankets like dandruff.

The next two houses I lived in had two stories, and bedrooms were always on the second floor. When I left my second story bedroom for a third floor dorm, and started writing fiction, I could never conceive of a bedroom that did not begin and end with stairs. One comes down from ones bed. It is simply the way of things.

When my brother tried to kill himself, he was going to jump from the roof from his second story bedroom. I realize now that this would probably not have killed him, but I'm sure it didn't seem so obvious at the time. I wasn't there. And when I examine my memory of my mother telling me, in the car on my way home from college for the summer, I don't really remember what she said. I don't remember her saying it. And I wonder if I'm wrong, if my brother tried to kill himself while I was away at college, and I don't even know how he was going to do it.

It all makes sense now. All the scattered things I've been trying to make that I can't finish because I don't know what they're about—the story about Sheila, the story about Caboose, the photos with Chinese restaurants and my father's living room and the lions in front of that movie theater in Keokuk—they're all the same thing. I am filling a shoebox with all of these things, which are connected, and not. It's not about any one thing, it's about all of them.

Week 2, part 4: Therefore, blog.

2012-01-12T16:04:00.001-06:00

(I am apparently going to do a lot of make-up work this weekend. Which is fine, I already kind of knew that.)

One of the reasons I'm blogging so steadily about losing weight is because I'm trying to keep it out of my real-time interactions. Losing weight is a constant activity. I'm not just sitting here, typing (when I should be scheduling), I'm sitting here typing and not eating. And that takes effort. Not particularly soul-killing effort, not now, not today, but still, my weight is on my mind. It has to be.

It's also a really big deal for me. I've spent most of my life blaming things in my life on being fat, blaming my fat on me, making tidy little shame spirals to fall into. I have set up in my mind that being fat is the One Thing that keeps me from having the life I want. By losing weight, I gain access to all those things the fat kept me away from. And, rationally, I know this isn't so. But we're not talking about reason here. We're talking about fat. So even though yesterday I accomplished some awesome things at work, what I came home proud of is the number on the scale that morning.

On the other hand, I really don't want this to be What I Talk About. It's repetitive. It's problematic. It's boring. I mean, people use "talking about the weather" as the epitome of the thing you say when there's nothing to say, but at least the weather is something that everyone shares in. (Also, few things affect me as pervasively as the weather does—it colors everything that happens every day—so, yeah, kinda big deal for me.) And unlike my internet dating obsession, losing weight doesn't generate anything I can turn into an amusing anecdote. I have introspection, I have soapboxes galore. And so I have this blog.

Week 2, part 3: Definitions of success.

2012-01-12T10:38:00.000-06:00

When I first realized that, not only wasn't I hovering at just under 200 pounds, but I was starting to gain weight rapidly, when my favorite skirts didn't fit, and I didn't have the self-confidence to wear my favorite fitted shirts, it felt like everything I had been proud of in the last three years was invalidated. And, yeah, that's a hyperbolic response. But that 60 pounds I lost was the driving force behind so much else. If I can do this, I thought, maybe I really can do that. Maybe I can be the person I want to be. It's not just that I liked how I looked, it was that I was succeeding at the one thing that I spent years and years trying and failing to do. And that trying and failing was behind so much of my depression and self-loathing that I decided I was better off pretending my body didn't exist.

What I have gradually come to, not only think, but really believe, is that I didn't fail at losing 60 pounds. I succeeded at losing, and keeping off, 30 pounds. Because of my effort, I spent the greater part of the last three years weighing 30 pounds less than I did when I started. And, because of that effort I put in the last time, I have an easier goal now. Last time, 60 pounds was going to get me a little more than half-way to my goal. Now, if I can just make it a little past 60, I will be at my goal. And this is just an estimate. I have a goal I'm working towards, but it's been so long since I've been thin that I don't know what I weigh when I'm thin. The last time I wore a size 8 jeans I was a B cup; those numbers aren't going to apply for me and my DD's now. So my plan is to work towards my goal, with the understanding that my goal may change as I get closer.

As of Thursday morning, I weighed 210 pounds. This is extreme enough to be cause for concern. My chart looks anorexic. I know, because I was once. And succeeding at loosing weight by becoming anorexic isn't succeeding. It is the worst kind of failure. So now I am even more glad to have found a good system for exercise, not just because it's good for me and helps me lose weight, but because if I am starving myself I can't exercise. Which means that if I can exercise than I'm not starving myself. (Technically, all diets are a form of controlled starvation, but I'm talking the difference between two small meals a day versus an apple a day. Literally. One of these causes me to feel faint while walking down stairs, the other doesn't.)

So I am going to assume that since I hovered around 205 for a long time, and only recently went up over 210, that my body hasn't had time to plateau there yet. What goes on fast can come off fast. (Which is why my relaxed weekend rules aren't a problem, what I do in a day I can undo in a day.) And I am going to continue as is. Carefully.

Week 2, part 2

2012-01-09T14:43:00.001-06:00

2:30pm Monday. one "healthy choice" frozen meal. I have once again won the battle with the vending machine over a pack of Cheetos. I am Cheetos-free.

I am losing weight because I have been socially conditioned to believe that I will be prettier if I do. But knowing the origins of my feelings doesn't change that I have them, and I have given up trying to change how I feel about my body.

What bothers me about this, is that by making this decision for myself, by caving into societal expectations, I am, in my own small way, enforcing those expectations. I am part of the problem. I buy weight-loss products. I am seen eating weight-loss products. I show off my body when I lose weight, and cover it up when I gain. I am contributing to the culture that says that thinner=better, even if I never speak those words. My money and my actions support the industry. I am helping the weight-loss industry make women feel bad about their bodies.

It's a small thing, I know. If I suddenly started to live as the body-positive person I wish I were, women across America wouldn't suddenly jump up and say "You know what? I am beautiful!" But that's what societal pressure is, a million small things that add up over time. I am part of that million, and I wish I weren't.

Week 2, part 1: Reckoning

2012-01-09T09:19:00.003-06:00

9:10 am, Monday. 214 pounds. Loss this week: 3 pounds. Total loss: 3 pounds.

Starting week 2. Technically, it's only been six days, but I like to count from Monday. Because I let myself relax a little on the weekends, it's good to have Monday be the day of reckoning, to give myself that impetus to get started in earnest again.

(Also, I'm not going to tell you what I eat on weekends. Accountability only goes so far. And a girl's got to have some quiche in private sometimes.)

Christmas vacation

2012-01-07T23:51:00.001-06:00

My dad's house.

Week 1, part 3

2012-01-07T10:04:00.001-06:00

10pm, Friday. Roast beef sandwich, 2 pieces of turkey.

9:40am, Saturday. 213 pounds.

Everyone says that one shouldn't weigh oneself every day. Even on a strict weight-loss regime, there isn't going to be a lot of loss on a daily basis, and there are so many other causes for fluctuation, that the little things cover up the overall changes. Also, weighing every day fosters an unhealthy obsession with the scale as measurement of fitness--muscles weigh more than fat, so gaining muscle sometimes means gaining weight, even while the waistline is shrinking. And obsession can lead to crazy, which can lead to eating disorders and all kinds of shit.

First off, I have an eating disorder. It's like alcoholism: it can't be cured, but it can be managed. I manage. And, yes, trying to lose weight tempts the disease. I manage.

What weighing myself every day does is teach me all those other causes for fluctuation. I have a very keen sense of how my body works when I am losing weight. I know that my Saturday weigh-ins are always dramatically better, because I sleep in on Saturday, and those extra 2-3 hours make a difference. Similarly, my Monday weigh-in is always a little disappointing, not only because I relax my diet more on the weekend, but because I'm waking up early again. I know that if I eat dinner late one day, my next weigh-in will be higher than it otherwise would be. I know that I start retaining water as I move towards my period, and lose it right when I start bleeding.

I also know that my day-to-days are always going to be a little erratic. I don't despair when they go up, because I know they will go down. And when it goes up, I know why. I know what decisions I made or didn't make that caused my weight to change. This is a long process I'm signing myself up for. A year, maybe two. And it takes decisions on a daily basis-- every morning, I have to not go to McDonald's. Weighing myself every morning helps remind me that every day I have decisions to make, and daily decisions make a difference. I need to know that they make a difference.

Week 1, part 2

2012-01-06T10:26:00.000-06:00

9 pm Thursday. one "healthy choice" frozen meal, one "healthy choice" frozen snack, one pack of ramen, stir-fried, several pieces of turkey, two oranges, one handful of peppermint kisses. A little more walking, a few heavy boxes moved.

I was going to have a pack of Cheetos, but then I would have to tell you about it. So I decided not to. Public shame as a motivational tool FTW.

10am Friday. 216 pounds. One fun size pack of M&M's found in the lab.

I am SORE. And I can't quite tell which pains are from the extra exercise I have added to my day, which pains are part of my normal cycle of back pain, and which pains are from my attempts to pound/stretch out my back pain. When my back hurts, I find myself pushing at the muscles, trying to rub out the knots, and the next day I feel like I've been punched. A lot. I have crappy posture and heavy boobs. This is normal.

So my upper body is a mystery, and my favorite punching game on the Kinnect may or may not be having an impact on my muscles. But I can't blame my legs on anything but walking and dancing. Which means that I'm doing something. It isn't a lot, but it's making a difference. If I keep doing the thing that makes me sore for a few weeks, it will start to take more to get me sore.

I have decided to give my muscles a break today. Tomorrow I will be moving furniture, today I can just go home and Morrowind my brains out. I keep having to talk myself out of giving myself a break on my food choices. So far I have resisted Starbucks on my way to work. I did not resist the free fun-size M&M's. I think that I will go downtown and pick up my film during lunch, and get a sandwich (roast beef, no cheese or mayo, 350 cal), and bring my frozen meal home for dinner.

I realize that I am eating less, but I am not eating healthfully. Everything I eat was preserved, frozen, and microwaved. My nutrition is crap. But I can only handle so many things at a time, and food-in-a-box is quick and cheap and easy. And I need some things to be quick and cheap and easy.

Week 1: 217 pounds

2012-01-05T00:53:00.000-06:00

Wednesday. 217 pounds. One doughnut, one "healthy choice" frozen meal, one "healthy choice" frozen meal with extra turkey and sauce added, a couple peppermint kisses. A few dances, a few games on the Kinnect, about 20-30 minutes total.

I suppose that before I go into a series about losing weight, I should start with a few declarations. I am fat. That is my preferred term. Fat is the word for the kind of cell that stores energy and hangs out underneath the skin, and in large quantities, will change a person's outward shape. Since my shape is visibly altered by the quantity and fullness of my fat cells, that makes me fat. I will accept the terms overweight, round, or heavy. I hate the terms fluffy and big-boned, and don't get me started on real woman.

I think that the accumulation of fat cells is sometimes, but not always, a result of unhealthy choices regarding food consumption and physical exertion. However, those unhealthy choices do not always result in excess fat, and those choices are not the only cause. Some thin people sit on the couch eating Cheetos all day, and some fat people can happily hike up mountains. Therefore it is not possible to look at someone's shape and determine anything about their diet and exercise. We can guess, and sometimes we're right. But we are only guessing.

I do believe that carrying weight adds stress to the body, because just as one person might get more tired after doing their daily routine while carrying a 30 pound backpack, I am going to get more tired after doing my daily routine while carrying 50 pounds of fat. My body is working harder, my joints are under more pressure. But am I working harder than someone who actually does physical work all day? No way. And no one says, "don't work hard because you'll have a heart attack and die." The body is meant to work.

The danger of heart attacks and diabetes is not the fat under my skin, it's the unhealthy choices in diet and exercise. Not only do some fat people eat well and exercise, they demonstrate all of the standard signs of good physical health—blood pressure, endurance, heart rate, and cholesterol levels. (And conversely, some thin people have terrible cardiovascular health, and get tired walking across the mall parking lot.)

I am not one of those people. I am fat and out of shape.

10 am, Thursday. 216 pounds. 20 minute warm-up on the Kinnect, a 40 minute walk to the bus (locked myself out of the house yay), and a doughnut (free food is my Achilles heel).

I would like to say that this is about my health. I would like to say that my goal isn't to lose weight, my goal is to be healthy. And if I can be healthy and stay fat, then why should it matter? But it matters to me. Yes, I want to be healthy. Yes, I want to stop being out of breath after two flights of stairs. But I also want, desperately, to be thinner. Because, no matter how many role models I can look at, who are fat and sexy, no matter how much I analyze the way that cultural messages negatively impact the way we see beauty, no matter how well I construct my fat-positive manifesto, I still look at myself and think that fat makes me less pretty. And I want to be pretty. So I am losing weight.

I have done this before. In August of 2008, I weighed 245 pounds. In September of 2009, I weighed 185 pounds. I ate less food. I went to the gym 5 days a week. And I lost 60 pounds. I am going to do it again.

Cross Posting Short Girl(s)

2011-12-31T14:37:00.002-06:00

I don't do New Year's Resolutions. I don't do New Years, and I don't do Resolutions. It's two different things, really:

New Year's
I am totally willing to go to a party on New Years. I like parties. I like dancing. I like drinking. I like making noise at midnight because I like making noise. But New Year's doesn't hold any meaning for me besides a night that people have parties and make noise at midnight. If everyone in Iowa City started celebrating Canada Day then I would go to Canada Day parties. (No offense, Canada, but I don't really care about you.) There are days that mark the beginnings and endings of things—the first day it feels like a new season, the first day of vacation or the first day of school—those are days that prompt an evaluation of my life, those are days that something changes. Even my birthday, which might be considered an equally artificial marker, feels like a more significant change than the switch from December 31 to January 1st. There is nothing that I want to do or not do on January 1st that I wouldn't want to do or not do on December 31st. Except, perhaps, sleep off a hangover.

Resolution
A resolution is a promise that I make to myself. And I don't believe in promises, not the way that people seem to use them. I think that a decision is either the best decision one can make given known information, or it isn't. If it is the best decision, then it should be made regardless of promises given or not given. If a promised action is the right action then the promise doesn't make a difference. It only makes a difference when that promised action isn't the best action, because then the promise only serves to enforce the wrong action. We make promises based on our belief in future events. Sometimes we're wrong. Not every goal is attainable, and sometimes we can be harmed by attempting unattainable goals.

It's not that I don't believe in goals. I believe in ever-evolving goals that reflect the best we know at any given time. There are things that I want, that I strive for. Sometimes I reach them. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I decide that I'm better off if I don't try for that goal. And I never decide if a goal is helping or hurting me, or if a decision is a good or bad one, because of a promise I made.

(written as a guest post at www.shortgirlphoto.blogspot.com)

Heat Transfer

2011-12-30T14:45:00.001-06:00

Every time the water turns back, past my ankles and into the opening mouth of a coming wave, it pulls away the sand under my heels, digging little depressions for me to sink back into. The longer I stand, the further entrenched I become. It’s as if I am fighting back the pull of water; the longer it pulls, the deeper I plant myself into the sand.

I always come back to this.

It is the day after Christmas, and my father and I are standing ankle-deep in the Pacific Ocean and talking about heat transfer and temperature. Did you know that if you stood in a room where the air temperature was 34 degrees, but the walls were 80 degrees, you would feel warm? It takes a specialized temperature control set up, but scientists have tried it and it works. It has to do with radiative versus conductive heat.

I wonder what it would be like to live in perpetual sun again.

The ocean tugs at my ankles; I am aware of the metaphor. It pulls me westward, homeward, California-bound. I am surprised to hear myself say, homeward. I lived here for seventeen years. And then I stopped. But here I am, fifteen years later, and the word comes, unbidden. Home.

Home

2011-11-11T17:47:00.001-06:00

The last time I walked on the old Arts Campus was the day after Tom Aprile died. I was on a date with Other Dan, and we were taking the long way to the theater building to see No Shame Theater. As we passed the old sculpture classroom--the workroom, not the trailer--he said huh, wonder what was in there.

In the little office at the back of room 350 was a clear push pin holding a ripped piece of paper with the phone number for home. Today, I took the paper down, rolled it up, and put it in my pocket.

light switch and sink

2011-11-10T21:00:00.001-06:00

I needed to tell you this

2011-11-10T12:39:00.001-06:00

I needed to say how terrified I am. And I can't tell the people around me because I'm busy projecting confidence. Or at least, projecting more confidence than I feel. I mention that I'm worried. And then I laugh and shrug it off. Because what I'm terrified of is showing how lost I am, how little and scared I feel, how ignorant.

If You Would Like to Drive to Stockton, CA

2011-11-10T08:13:00.000-06:00

You can see my photographs while you're there.

Hello.

2011-11-05T20:59:00.003-05:00

I have read your comment(s). I have tried to reply. So far, all I have managed to write in my head is thank you. And it is not enough. There is gratitude, and pleasure, and embarrassment, because I have been well-trained to feel embarrassed by praise, and also there is wonder and awe, at your kindness, and your words (which I do read, quietly and without comment) because I also like your writing, but I feel funny saying it because it sounds like I'm just saying back what I hear. Well, technically, I am, but it's not like that, it's not.

Thank you.

(And also my address is
nine fourteen dearborn street
iowa city IA five two two four zero.)

more things

2011-11-03T01:18:00.002-05:00

Objects from my grandparent's house.

#OCCUPYOAKLAND

2011-10-27T16:11:00.000-05:00

I lived in Oakland for three years, but always as a transient. I was from somewhere else. I was going somewhere else. I just hadn't done it yet. Oakland was never mine, and I never loved it. I complained about weather, and BART hours, and politics, and weather. And then I did leave, four years ago, and I stayed gone.

And yet I find now that I am from Oakland, as much as I am from Poway or Baltimore, or when I travel these days, and say that I am from Iowa. The place is embedded in my history, my habits, my expectations of the world. When something happens in Oakland, to Oakland, I take it personally. Even from 2000 miles away.

I am very proud of this.

2011-10-22T17:19:00.003-05:00

Palm Trees

2011-10-21T14:40:00.001-05:00

You know how sometimes the last thing you said starts echoing in your ears until it's unrecognizable and awful?

So here is Mission Beach, San Diego. Look! Palm trees!

Doom Girl 2: The Return of The Doom

2011-10-21T12:14:00.002-05:00

What I'm trying to say is that just because I am insecure doesn't mean that I'm wrong.

It's not a unique position, but it's not universal either. Some people have insecurities that relate to other problems. Some people go out and think "I look hot," and mean it. They might doubt their social skills or intelligence or worth as a human being, but they know that people find them attractive. Some people doubt their appearance, but with far less reason. I think that my attractiveness to other people is below average, which by definition means that half the population is better at it than I am. So that half of the population either knows it, and feels less doubt, or doesn't know it, and their doubt is less rational. Either way, it's not the same thing.

Doom Girl

2011-10-20T20:16:00.000-05:00

He texted back immediately, and I thought so maybe it's not over. And then in the 30 minutes since then I have managed to convince myself that it really is over. Because, obviously, a 30 minute wait between texts = doom.

This is, apparently, my MO. I predict doom.

I wish it wasn't. It's kind of tiring, really. All this doom. Or rather, the back-and-forth between maybe-he-wills and no-he-won'ts is tiring. I wish I could stop.

Except I don't think I'm being entirely unreasonable. Thinking that THIRTY MINUTES WAIT = HE WILL NEVER CALL AGAIN is silly. But the only reason I think that is because the underlying trust isn't there. And I'm not sure that's unreasonable. I think that my odds are slim. I think that existing trends do not support the hypothesis that things with Alex will work out.

And trust? Trust is just another kind of faith. I don't have any of that kind, either.

coffee table

2011-10-20T19:32:00.001-05:00

I made this today. Well, some of the handle I made yesterday. But I made most of it today.

Still needs a lot of work.

this post is in dire need of a conclusion

2011-10-14T17:02:00.001-05:00

They are going to take the tooth.

I've had teeth pulled before; I'm already missing eight of them. But this is my fucking front tooth. (Fig.1, tooth #9.) I'm going to look like a six year old or a meth addict. And, yes, they will make me a (horribly named) "flipper," which is like a denture for a single tooth. And it will match my much-yellowed existing teeth. And eventually they're going to drill a new tooth directly into the bone. But I will be toothless for at least four months, maybe more. The entire process is expected to take about nine months.

fig 1: YOUR TEETH

And speaking of drilling into bone, I'm getting a bone implant from a dead person. Which, according to the literature, should be tested for disease. I'm faintly disturbed by the fact that not only will the literature refuse to claim with certainty that my dead-guy-bone will be disease-free, they won't even claim with certainty that it will have been tested. Seriously? My periodontist assures me that the bone-procuring procedure is totally ethical and safe. Despite rumors I may have heard. No Chinese prisoners. No diseases.

(I actually think the dead-guy bone implant is pretty awesome. I'm more bothered by the literature than the actual procedure. Or, rather, I'm bothered by the procedure because it involves knives, and me, and being conscious, but not because of the dead guy. Just because it doesn't hurt when being cut, doesn't mean it doesn't feel awful. And then there's the later, which does hurt. Dammit.)

I think I have to stop biting my nails.

My periodontist is Dr. M. She is young and pretty, with cold, slender hands, and sleek brown hair. My endodontist tells me in the hallway that they are dating. I think he was trying to say something about how he wants to save teeth. He really wants to save teeth. But my tooth can't be saved. Also, he's dating Dr. M. Apparently, she is not good for his ability to make coherent transitions, because I have no idea what those two things have in common.

Dr. M was actually the second of three periodontists I met yesterday. After Dr. M was the head of the periodontics department. Then I met the director of the prosthodontics department. (Are department names considered proper names? Someone help me out here.) And then there was a second grad student who came to take some extra pictures before I left, because they'd be great for teaching. I have an appointment next week with another prosthodontist, but I haven't met him yet. And I'm pretty sure that department heads, capitalized or not, usually don't come to look at everyone's teeth. I asked my endodontist if my tooth was unusual in some way, but he looked at me earnestly and said that no, this was perfectly normal. I asked Dr. M, and she gave me the same answer. I think that they think I want to hear that I'm normal.

I don't want to be normal. If I'm going to go through a nine-month, $4000, treatment plan, I might as well have a freakish reason for it. If I'm going to get 3rd degree burns I'd much rather them be from a flamethrower than a campfire. Instead I'm getting a nine-month, $4000 treatment plan because I knocked my front teeth when I was 12 or 13 which caused a slight horizontal fracture in my left front tooth. For 19 years the fracture has been extending and expanding in an un-savable-fashion. My tooth was doomed almost from the start, I just didn't know it.


fig 2: 14 years old

I'm sure there's some sort of metaphor to be made here, about things we unknowingly set in motion years ago, or how we never really escape our childhoods. Maybe something that plays into the whole teeth-falling-out-insecurity-dream that I've heard about but never actually experienced. I don't know. I am relieved to think that this isn't my fault, not in a way that matters. I may have tripped and fell. I may have accidentally walked into someone's elbow. It wasn't even really me who was so clumsy or accident-prone, it was some other, earlier me. Someone I don't have to take responsibility for.

Because there's something embarrassing about sitting at the dentist as he points out what is wrong with my body, see, here is where the bone is losing density, and here is the crack that is causing it. All medicine is kind of embarrassing. Andy says I shouldn't replace the tooth; I could learn to whistle. Instead, I am getting teeth-whitening strips in a last-ditch effort to give my mouth some respectability.

negotiating

2011-10-12T12:59:00.002-05:00

Speaking of how I got from there to here.

Almost a year ago, I was approached on OK Cupid by a 19 year old who wanted to improve his oral sex skills, and would I help him practice? I turned him down, but offered some advice for the future. Such as: start with women who are interested in casual sex, and try to not sound like you're looking for a second-rate girl to practice on so you can get the first-rate ones. There was much thanking, and apologizing, and occasionally he shows up on IM to say hi, how's it going.

Skip forward a bit to a month ago. September 13th, to be exact. I am going out of my mind with unfulfilled lust. And I know, because I've tried, that casual sex doesn't make me happy, but it might get me through the night. And there's something appealing in the idea of having someone there to do exactly what I want. And I do want. All I am is want. So I message him to say that I might be interested, if he still is.

A week or two passes, and I have written a video essay about online dating. I have written a fantasy dating montage that shows a multitude of relationship scenes, including a "making out in bed" scene, and I can't think of who I would ask to film it with me. And I think, Babylingus (as Cassie has named him) makes kind of a perfect choice. There's no risk in asking, because he's not a friend. And because he's not a friend, I don't have to see him again. He's nonthreatening. He's already expressed interest. He's already made a crazy proposition, why not match it with one of my own? I can do him a favor, he can do me a favor. Quid pro quo.

I proposed. He dithered. I explained. He disappeared. He came back with conditions. (The boy has some spunk!) I refused them. And now, we are negotiating.

plotting the curve

2011-10-12T11:59:00.002-05:00

I am trying to remember how I got from there to here. I know that twelve years ago, I was miserable, and I know that I am not miserable anymore. But I don't know how, when, why, that changed. Was it an even upward slope? Was it imperceptible for years before sweeping quickly up in a surge of sanity? I have points I can plot on that graph, but they are few and far between.

Marking the lowest point: Sitting on a sidewalk in Rome, in July of 2000, my back pressed against the side of a building. Trying to make myself small. Most of my memories of Europe are memories of the photographs I took, and so I don't know what that street looked like. I fill in the holes with the images I do have: pale gray columns in Venice, curved and elegant, lining gray stone steps. Gray cracks in a gray sidewalk in Berlin. I shot everything in black and white. I have three rolls full of the Roman forum in splendid despair, and half a roll of the Colosseum. But the only photo I have of the Vatican is a quick snapshot while crossing the street, the dome of St. Peter's bright in the distance. I spent that day crying on the sidewalk, cross-legged with my camera bag in my lap, determined to never be happy again.

(Jeriah tells the story differently. He charts "rock bottom" a week or two earlier, in Paris. We were on the fourth or fifth floor in a cream colored apartment building in Monmartre. He says that there were days when we never left the building because I couldn't bear to uncurl my spine. But all I remember is a little white-walled room where we ate bread and cheese and I read Stardust aloud at night. I'd forgotten to reset my film speed, so in my memory, the room is always overexposed, almost too bright to be seen. I have no memory of being sad in Paris.)

Marking the highest point: Walking down Jefferson Street in January 2009 with John Englebrecht, the sidewalk treacherous with secret icy patches and lumps of iced-over snow. I told him that I thought I could do anything I wanted.

grumpy

2011-10-09T18:36:00.001-05:00

I want to think that I'm grumpy for some other reason. Hormones. Or drugs. But I don't think it's hormones, and I think I've remembered to take my drugs. I've decided, for no good reason, that Alex is over. Which I have decided before, but this time I care. This time it makes me sad. And I'm sad-eating, which makes me feel un-want-able, to go with the feeling of being un-wanted. And I'm totally annoying, even to myself.

notes

2011-10-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

Chicago, broken-down car, blues dancing, strangers asking me for a dance, Jeriah and Malibu Black and orange-pineapple juice and lives that didn't happen, dim sum with carts like a proper restaurant, plotting the curve between Rome in 2000 and today, new car, for reals, new car, Alex, Andrew, wedding, Alex, Alex, Alex

10 days

2011-09-26T12:39:00.003-05:00

Thursday, I went to a strip club for the first time. We brought a picnic basket and wine. Saturday I went to knitter's breakfast, saw a movie with Kenda, had dinner with Janel, and saw a movie with Alex. Sunday I had Benedictos Banditos for breakfast, learned how to re-format my T3i footage for FCP, went to a picnic in the park, and mixed a first draft (storyboards and screen capture only, so far) of The Video. This week I am putting together Instructional Equipment Requests, and Friday I am going to Chicago for blues dancing and photographing and city beaching and dim sum and possibly filming. I MIGHT be able to spend a few minutes each day NOT obsessing over Alex. Maybe.

After the movie, he kissed me. Hallelujah.

WiP

2011-09-25T23:22:00.001-05:00

Obviously, still very much a work in progress. But, hopefully, watchable this time.

(re-uploaded 9/26)

Proof

2011-09-23T20:01:00.004-05:00

Proof of concept. Don't watch.

Tagged: art, sex, video

2011-09-22T12:02:00.000-05:00

Quid pro quo.

This morning, I offered sexual favors as a commodity for trade.

I'm not talking about the somewhat publically acceptable dating contract, where men pay for fancy dinners and drinks and eventually are rewarded with sex. No, I'm talking about a casting couch, except I'm the one offering sexual favors, and he's the one who might agree to be in my video. So, I guess I'm officially a prostitute. Or at least a sex worker.

I am very aware of that line I've crossed. I am aware that I am supposed to feel ashamed. But I'm feeling confident, and in control, and a little bit mischevious. I'm surprised at myself. But I'm not disappointed.

the question

2011-09-18T00:35:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think that being white is looking white, and I am just clinging to some exotic self-image because I want to be different.

I never really passed until I came to Iowa. All my life, people, upon meeting me, would eventually ask some variation of the question, "what are you?" More than a few have guessed Latina, and a boyfriend once told me that I looked like an Eskimo. While I worked in a photography store in Berkeley,* a student asked me if she could photograph me as part of a series of portraits of people of mixed-race. It happened twice. Here, I have friends here who say they never guessed, they never even thought that there was something to guess. And no one asks me that question anymore.

So I'm photographing Chinese restaurants in Iowa, but it's not really about the restaurants. It's about our living room with it's hard, heavy chairs and grandly absurd dragons. It's about the stone lions that I begged my friends to steal. It's about this cultural heritage that I don't feel I can claim, even though it's the same heritage that made us different. I don't think I want a survey of restaurant decor. What I want is bigger and less well defined.

*still the Best Camera Store Ever

Golden China Restraunt

2011-09-15T17:15:00.001-05:00

His text said "maybe tomorrow." No chat or flirt or smile. I'm feeling the brush-off. Whatever.

The point is that the above paragraph is NOT the point of this post. The point is that I am starting to print final versions of my new State Fair images. The versions online are only stand-ins, quick and easy and good enough. The prints are not good enough. They are good. They are lush and large and beautiful and I love them. They feel like home. I've been away far too long.

This weekend I am going to photograph Chinese restraunts, because there is something wonderfully kitchy about Chinese restraunts in America, especially Chinese restraunts in Iowa. It's as if someone put a dozen or so elements in a hat and pulled out a few for each restraunt. Mix and match Asian flavor: The painting with cranes. The painting with fish. The painting with horses. The name, which contains two or three of the following words: China, Szechwan, Shanghi, Hunan, village, palace, jade, dragon, golden, and lucky. It isn't that these things are inauthentic. I have been to Chinese restraunts in Hong Kong and China, and they had carved lion statues, too. Like the ones my mother put in front of our house. The embroidered tigers and cranes hanging in our living room were not any more or less authentic than the ones hanging at Golden China Restraunt.* But context matters, and we as Americans are not totally over our Orientalism, and so the statues and embroidery take on an air of absurdity that they don't have in China.**

Also, Taste of China has PINK walls and awesome pot stickers. I can't wait.

*I made that one up. See how easy it is?
**Our living room, on the other hand, was entirely absurd.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

2011-09-14T09:24:00.001-05:00

Monday night was a twin bed in a tiny efficiency appartment, lying on our sides, and--oh god--his hand pushing and kneading at my breast, pulling at the small of my back. But I did not have sex with him, I was too timid for that.

Tuesday was hope and want and anticipation, my nipples hard and sore, distracting. I don't really know what I did all day. I couldn't manage to care. I wanted back on that bed. I told him so. But he never wrote back.

And it is only Wednesday now, but hope and want and anticipation have limits, and I have reached them. Hope doesn't float, it flails and splashes desperately, and it's exhausting. I can't afford to not give up.

I would like to sell you real estate

2011-09-11T22:04:00.002-05:00

Black and white means I'm serious.

I needed a head shot. Blah.

gauntlet thrown

2011-09-08T22:37:00.002-05:00

text message sent 10:20pm

ps- in case you hadn't noticed, I think you're charming and I like you. Good night. :)

Not really a gauntlet. More like a sock or a hair tie thrown. Something with a lot less panache and a lot more internal squirming.

wrong

2011-09-07T12:17:00.002-05:00

I am trying to not ask What did I do wrong? What do I do wrong? What is wrong with me? Honestly, I'm trying to not talk about it at all, because it seems like a lot of noise over a very little event. I'm blowing it all out of proportion. But the problem with writing one-hundred-and-eleven messages, is that they accumulate. This isn't one rejection, it's all of them, or at least it's sitting on top of the leftover packaging from all the other rejections, and so takes up much more room than it would by itself.

I could start an entire spreadsheet, solely for categorizing and tracking rejections. There are the most common kind, the rejection-by-silence. Over 50% of my messages never receive a reply. Close behind are the single-response rejections, where I get one reply, out of courtesy, perhaps, but with no interest fueling it. Within that category are two sub-categories, the replies that explicitly state their purpose, and the ones that do not. I greatly prefer the former, but when the roles are reversed, I rarely write them.

The next category is perhaps the most frustrating. The several-replies-followed-by-silence. With each successive communication, I am a little more revealed. And with each successive communication, I have a little more at stake. We play poker, and the chips are hope. But I don't see his tells, and when I lose, I am bewildered. I never see it coming. And I can't fall back on maybe, maybe he actually has a girlfriend but never deleted his profile. Maybe he doesn't want to date someone so old or fat or far away. Maybe it's not something I said. But the several-replies-followed-by-silence-reject-or is someone who appeared interested. He either feigned interest, for some unknown purpose, or he had interest, and then lost it. These are the messages that I read over and over, looking for turning points, looking to find answers in something I said, looking for moments when I lost, I just didn't know it yet. I never find them.

Out of one-hundred-and-eleven messages, only five have made it to a meeting in person. Of those five, three of them I slept with, one I never pursued, and one allowed a kiss before ending things the next day. So there is no category for this. Perhaps that's why I can't let it go. It's strange, that after one-hundred-and-eleven messages, I've never seen this one before. And so I keep asking, even though I know that the answer, if there was one, which there isn't, would do me no good. I ask anyway. What did I do wrong?

It all makes sense, now

2011-09-07T12:12:00.002-05:00

There are Giants in the Sky

2011-09-06T13:17:00.005-05:00

He smelled like aftershave or deodorant, nothing special. It only matters that I could smell him. He was close enough for that. I thought that maybe I could stop reading florid sex scenes in romance novels in favor of actually having sex. Not immediately, of course, but soon.

I am very aware of the empty rooms inside me. There is the room I had filled with his aftershave, and the room where I watched Into The Woods last night, where Jack's song still paces across the floor, echoing. I want to be Jack. I want his soaring, bright-eyed song. But, even more, I want to write that song. I want that moment, and I want to write something that makes someone else want it. I want you to feel something. I can't make him want me, but I want to make someone want something.

two kisses

2011-09-06T00:07:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, it was soft and sweet and just long enough for my hands to find themselves behind his head and his hands to rest on my waist. I keep thinking about that, his hands on my waist, light pressure, encircling.

Today, he turned away. I kissed his cheek instead and went inside.

good night kiss, achieved

2011-09-05T00:39:00.001-05:00

tomorrow, Nebraska

oops, forgot this one

2011-08-30T22:45:00.002-05:00

Today:

The Iowa Review is in Prairie Lights.

I made a few more work prints from this year's state fairs.

I got into in a show in California.

I arranged to have coffee with Mandy from OK Cupid on Thursday.

I arranged to have dinner with Voldemort on Sunday. He's going to make tacos, guacamole, and margaritas.

(no subject)

2011-08-28T00:46:00.002-05:00

more thoughts on sad dogs and writing

2011-08-27T12:37:00.007-05:00

I should be sleeping but I'm reading over and making small edits to old writings instead

2011-08-26T00:50:00.003-05:00

I remember a photograph of myself at four years old. I am sitting on the floor and smiling with my arm around my new puppy. I am wearing a green checked dress. The puppy is a light fawn color with a white nose and white belly. We are roughly the same size. There is a Christmas tree behind me and the legs and feet of adults at the edge of the frame. I have no memory of this event; in my earliest memories we already have a dog. His name is Caboose.

Except it’s not entirely true that in my earliest memories we had a dog, because he isn’t present in most of my memories. I remember the fact that he existed at that time, but he wasn’t there. If each memory were a photograph, he would be, always, outside the frame. We kept him in the backyard, to be eventually joined by first one, and then two, black cats, and an escaped rabbit.

When my parents tell the story, they say, We got you a puppy because he was small, and you were small, but we should have gotten a small dog instead. The puppy was rambunctious. He scared you. It’s a reasonable explanation. I don’t know if it’s true. I only know that I never loved him. None of us did.

I don’t know if I had asked for a dog or if he just happened. With two parents, a brother, and a white stucco ranch house with a fenced-in backyard, perhaps the dog was simply a necessary part of what I would later learn to call our nuclear family. Other necessities included family trips in the summer to the Grand Canyon and day trips to the mountains in the winter. Dutifully, I learned to make snow angels and sled down small hills. My attempts at making snowmen were less successful. Afterwards, we would get back in the van, wet and shivering, and drive back home.

Nerd Soapbox Time

2011-08-24T22:29:00.001-05:00

"Dynamic range" refers to the range of luminance between the brightest and darkest parts of an image or scene. A film scanner, for example, might be praised for having a high dynamic range, meaning that it can register detail in both very high and very low density areas of a negative. Human sight is capable of processing a very high dynamic range, as demonstrated by the fact that I can sit in a room with a window and be able to see detail in both the couch in front of the window, and in the bushes outside the window. Most other recording and displaying media have much lower ranges. Negative film has a higher dynamic range than slide film, most digital cameras, and photo prints.

In traditional darkroom photography, the difference between the dynamic range of a scene and a negative can be dealt with by manipulating the exposure and development times to handle a greater range of light. The difference between the negative and the print can be dealt with by selectively exposing the print so that the darkest areas are exposed for less time than the lightest areas. This makes the dark areas a little lighter, and the light areas a little darker, compressing the total dynamic range from what it was on film to what can be captured in a print.

With digital photography, the sensor in a camera can't be manipulated to have a greater range than it is naturally built with. So in order to compress the dynamic range of a scene into that which can be printed, usually more than one exposure is taken, and those exposures are merged together selectively on the computer, much like selectively exposing a print in the darkroom. This can be done "by hand," which can be a very easy or tedious task, depending on the image. There are also programs and plug-ins that will take several exposures of the same image and merge them automatically. Both these programs and the images they create are generally called "HDR," which stands for "High Dynamic Range." The name is a bit of a misnomer, because they are actually turning scenes with high dynamic range into prints with lower dynamic range. The range is being compressed, rather than expanded.

Many of these HDR programs compress the dynamic range on a micro level, so that not only are broad areas of light or dark in a scene flattened out, but the individual highlights and shadows on every object in the scene are also flattened out. This process produces a look that often resembles video games and other computer generated graphics. That look has begun to be called "HDR," even when it wasn't created from a scene or set of files that had a high dynamic range to begin with.

So when someone takes a photo of a scene that has a medium dynamic range, and all areas of the scene are adequately exposed in the image, and then processes that image to look as if it had been put through an HDR program, and then calls that image an HDR image, it's wrong on multiple levels. It's a mislabel of a mislabel. The photo, first off, wasn't actually given any treatment to deal with a high dynamic range in the scene. And even if it had been, calling the final result a "high dynamic range" image is also a mislabel. The final image doesn't have a higher dynamic range, it has a lower one.

This is why I hate the term HDR.

111

2011-08-22T17:07:00.001-05:00

Also, I have more film to pick up (rolls 8-11). Yay!

110

2011-08-19T00:59:00.001-05:00

109

2011-08-18T01:02:00.003-05:00

This.

2011-08-17T22:52:00.002-05:00

This is what I do.

Iowa State Fair, 2011

notes for essay: now in screenplay form

2011-08-17T08:10:00.002-05:00

FADE TO BLACK

ANGELA (V.O.)

Between April 15, 2009, and August 9, 2011, I have written 108 messages.
Each message leaves me anxious but hopeful. I am full of wait and want.
I am constantly on the brink of something.

DATING FANTASY MONTAGE

ANGELA (V.O.)

Each message is an imagined future, the beginning of a story that -might-
happen. I have written myself one hundred and eight different lives.
(Music begins- “Friday I’m in Love”)

None of the montage images are clearly focused on the couple, and Angela IMAGINARY BOYFRIEND's faces are seldom visible in the frame. Imaginary Boyfriend changes in every shot.

--Angela and Imaginary Boyfriend walk across campus, holding hands. They stop and kiss.

--Angela is in the same place, holding hands with Imaginary Boyfriend.

--Angela and Imaginary Boyfriend walk into ice cream parlor, Angela walks out with a different Imaginary Boyfriend.

--Angela is with a group of people at a bar, they are talking and laughing, and she is half-sitting on Imaginary Boyfriend's lap.

ANGELA (V.O.)

Each message is a different version, not only of my future, but of myself. I have
written to one hundred and eight different people, and each one of those one
hundred and eight people have seen a different me.

--Angela and an unidentified person are snuggled on the couch watching TV.

--We end with Angela and Imaginary Boyfriend making out in bed. It is night, and the room is lit by the computer screen and a small lamp on the desk behind the bed. END MONTAGE

INT-ANGELA’S BATHROOM- DAY

We are seeing through Angela’s POV. The bathroom is bright. Angela washes her face and brushes her teeth. She takes medication. (Occasional fade to black, such as when washing face.)

ANGELA (V.O.)

I am confident. I am optimistic. I am happy. I am short, fat and half-asian.
Some days I'm also funny and intelligent and cute, although I don't know if I
ever manage all three at once. I am often entertaining. I seldom kill people.
I can't drive somewhere 2 hours away without wanting to keep driving for
another 6. Sometimes I yell at cats. I’m totally frazzled and anxious. I’m neurotic.
I’m way too old. I do not live in St. Louis. I am not reading a book while riding
a bike in a library. I have never been to a roller girl match, and I’m not quite
sure why. I haven't ever made a prank call. But I did once call every dirty 1-800
number I could think of, to see if they all actually were what they sounded like.

INT- ANGELA’S BEDROOM- DAY

Still through Angela’s POV, looking through the closet, picking out clothes, trying them on. The view in the mirror is blurred or far away.

ANGELA (V.O.)

Reading them later, I sometimes can’t believe the things I've said, out loud
(sort of) to total strangers, although I know that really, this is only possible
because they are strangers. They aren’t real people, not yet. Until they write
back, they are only the people I want them to be. While I write, I am the
person I want to be. And every time I write to someone new, I have a
new chance to try again. Every message is a first message and a new start.

FADE TO BLACK

ANGELA (V.O.)

I’ve actually tried to quit, more times than I can count. But I can’t stop.
I need the waiting, and the hoping, and the wanting. I don’t know what to
do with myself without it.

75mph

2011-08-15T13:05:00.003-05:00

80 East over the Mississippi. A stack of CDs on the passenger seat, holding down a ripped out sheet of notebook paper with my directions written down. 80 to 88 to 39 to 43 to 894 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In two hours I will check another state off my list. I am 27 and counting.

I remember what joy feels like. All the little disappointments, the boys I tried for and missed, they fall away. They never mattered in the first place. None of them felt like this. I want someone to be this road, right now, this sun and sky and music on the CD player. I am flinging myself across state lines and singing loudly and raucously and THIS is what I want, THIS is what I am worth.

notes for essay

2011-08-11T20:35:00.000-05:00

I write these messages to strangers on dating sites at two-thirty in the morning, half-drunk with exhaustion, and half-drunk with drink, giddy and hopeful. I write them when I wake up, and in the minutes before work or class. I mull them over for hours or days, typing and retyping the same sentence. I write them without thinking at all, almost on accident, I trip and they fall out of my hands.

Between April 15, 2009, and August 9, 2011, I have written 108 messages.

I write them to far away people I never expect to meet, and people in town who I want very much to meet. Sometimes, when I spend a lot of time thinking about a message, I begin to feel as if we've already met. I get along so well with the person I imagine that I can't quite believe that they wouldn't write back. After all, we're such good friends--or we will be, I know it.

Every message is an imagined future, the beginning of a story that could happen.

108

2011-08-11T20:28:00.002-05:00

107

2011-08-09T20:40:00.001-05:00

A girl. It only took me, oh, two hours to write...

one oh five and one oh six

2011-08-09T19:39:00.002-05:00

This one is scary because he's going to be a real person which means there's another level of accountability. I wanted to come off as "just saying hi and being friendly" and not "hey there I'm hitting on you."

I think it kind of looks like everything else I write, which either doesn't bode well for my plan, or means that I always just sound friendly.

What's the point of having a boyfriend if we're never going to go out for sushi?

where to start

2011-08-09T18:21:00.004-05:00

I might have a new reader. It might be you. And so I want to be interesting and eloquent and witty and wise.

I want you to like me. I want to appear as if I think about things other than this chronicle of unanswered messages. But I think that would be a lie. It kind of is all I think about. Also, yarn. Dating and yarn. Dating and yarn and the song Rabbit Heart, by Florence + the Machine, which has a very rousing chorus that sounds like groove is the love and groove is the life, but according to the lyrics is saying who is the lamb and who is the knife, and if you listen closely, is really saying who is the llama, who is the knife. And since llamas make yarn (with my help), I suppose I'm back to just dating and yarn again. And weight loss, and shoes, and oh my god I think that if I performed "female" any harder on this blog I might turn the entire internet pink.

I am trying to write a video essay about the dating project, not just about the dating this time, but the project as a whole, the spreadsheet and the graphs, and the things I have learned, and the things I haven't learned, but I don't know where to start. I don't know what the story is yet.

problem

2011-08-04T13:37:00.001-05:00

If I love myself just the way I am, then there is no need to make changes. If I want to be someone who improves myself, then I have to not-love some aspects of myself. At least, I have to think that I will love the change even better. The harder the change, the bigger the difference needs to be between how I feel about what I am and how I feel about what I could be. The desire has to match the difficulty.

Losing weight is really, really, hard. And the only way I can do it is if the gap between how much I like what I am and how much I like what I could be is really, really, big. And the only way to widen that gap enough is to hate what I am, to make it so I have to change. Because if there is any other acceptable option, I'd take it. And that's a problem.

3:36pm

2011-08-03T15:58:00.000-05:00

It's 3:36pm and I can't eat again until 6. I chew on the fleshy part of my right index finger between the knuckle and the first joint. I pull at my hair. I can't concentrate. It's August 3rd and I've been hungry since June.

104

2011-08-02T18:55:00.000-05:00

103

2011-08-02T13:57:00.001-05:00

101 & 102

2011-08-01T19:07:00.004-05:00

Things with Devin did not go well. They went very embarrassingly not well. Looking at other people, writing other people, helps me stop dwelling. I'm still feeling pretty doomed and unkissable. But at least now he is not the one hope that is failing, see, there are other maybe-hopes over there...

more charts

2011-08-01T09:01:00.007-05:00

I do not have internet at home. There's not much else to do.

I have SO MUCH DATA

2011-07-29T12:11:00.004-05:00

17 strangers read every message and rated it on a weirdness scale of 0-4. This is the mean weirdness score of each month, translated into a percentage (1 weird out of 4 = 25% weird) and then plotted onto a graph. I made the lines curvy because I like them; I do not really have that many data points. (Click through to see larger image.)

I have a maybe-date tomorrow and it's all I can think about

2011-07-27T12:34:00.003-05:00

It might seem like I'd date anything with a pulse, and it's true that I'm not picky. But it's because I'm genuinely not picky, rather than because I'm putting up with someone I'm not interested in just because he or she is willing to date me. It's because I don't see flaws, rather than because I put up with them in order to have or maintain a relationship. I'm not staying with people I don't like because it's better than being single.
But I do want someone more than I want any particular person. I get excited about the prospect of a date, but the person I'm dating is interchangeable, replaceable.
I wasn't always that girl. It used to go the other way around. FIRST I started to get excited about seeing someone. I'd enjoy their company. I'd look forward to talking to them. THEN I would start to want more out of it. It was about the person, not about what he or she could lead to. Now, the person is a means to an end, not the end in itself, and I don't know how to go back. But how do I decide to not want something? Or, having decided, how do I go about DOING it?

remembering

2011-07-25T08:58:00.002-05:00

Internet boys and girls I remember, in no particular order:

Ethan and Jeff

Two guys, both with children. One of them far-ish away, one close by. One moderately attractive, one much less so. I really thought we would get along. I thought we had so much in common, not just opinions about the world, but sense of humor, sense of fun, the things we cared about and the things we were willing to let go. I waited, on both of them, before writing, but I'd always thought we would be a sure thing-- maybe not as a couple, but at least as friends. The first one never wrote back, the second one only wrote once.

Jake

Jake was tall and bearded. We tried to go to Georges but we couldn't fit in on account of a live band in a bar that doesn't have anywhere to put a live band. So we went to Ugly's, where the jukebox was playing a 90's lineup, the kind of guilty pleasure that luckily we both shared. He remembered the words to Lisa Loeb, too. And he'd been the crazy guy in Catholic school who dressed in drag to the school dance and performed karaoke. On our second time out, we went to see roller derby. I was hooked. I maybe still am. And then, we made plans-- he suggested them-- but I never heard from him again. I sometimes still want to try to contact him, to try again, or, even worse, I want to ask Andy about him, because he mentioned being friends with Andy, but that can't possibly be a good idea. So I don't.

Nick

Nick is a code monkey who has problems with the beuracracies of formal collegiate education. I maybe could have started something with Nick, but I missed the moment, and I'm not really sad about that. I don't know if I ever wanted him, but I wanted someone. He has a girlfriend, and he's got a lot of shit to work through. We're still friends, at a distance. We talk on the phone every once in a while. He likes to hear my dating gossip, which always amazes me. I love having more people to overanalyze my dating gossip.

Henry

I get so caught up in the idea of it all. There is a boy! There is chemistry! There is kissing and sweet-talking and cuddling and sex! Someone LIKES me! And, for a moment, or a week or a month, it's all I can see. Every conversation has points in it where I laugh a little even though I didn't think it was very funny, or a point where I wish someone hadn't just said that because it's kind of offensive or embarrassing or just not very interesting. It's normal. With my friends, it doesn't happen very often, but when I'm in the middle of all the crush and the chemistry, it doesn't happen at all. It's not that I make excuses or brush it off, I don't see it at all. It's a very big blind spot, and eventually it wears off. Some people survive the wearing off. Henry didn't.

Satanist Dan and Cat-Pee-Mike

They don't really need an entry here, do they? Go listen to the radio piece.

Devin

Young, good-looking, hipster. Wrote me first. Volunteered to help me move, before ever meeting me, and after that he went with me & Fenna to see a terrible movie he didn't actually want to see. I'm hoping that means he likes me. I texted him but haven't heard back yet. Tattoos, hand-finished clothes, ironic mustache, fedora, uses a rope as a belt and admires the handiwork on my duct-taped plastic car window. Jumps around like a little kid. Has good things to say about life, and art, and beauty, and 60's do-wop music. The biggest reason I'm upset about not having internet at home is that I can't check and see if he's written me back or said anything online. What if his phone needs charging? What if he said "yes" to Thursday on OkCupid? What if he said something funny to me on Facebook? I have to KNOW!

Sarah

Her user name is after Dorothy Parker. We're talking about Charlotte's Web, my trip to San Diego, and her upheaving life. She's in a relationship, and I'm not sure what she's looking for in me, and I'm not sure how I'd feel if she expressed an interest. I haven't ruled out open relationships, although I'm not optimisitic as to how well I'd do in one. Also, girls are amazing and scary. I haven't written her back in a while partly because I've been busy or internet-less, and partly because it's easier.

Other Dan

Poor Other Dan. The first time we met, he wasn't as boring as I'd previously thought, and I kissed him. The second time, he was miserably boring, and I kissed him so we wouldn't have to try to talk anymore, and it was still miserably boring. It was actually worse. So I told him something about feeling guilty and I wasn't really okay with dating around (he knew there was someone else). After I changed my OK Cupid status to "single" again, he tried to meet up with me again. It was flattering, which made it a little tempting, but not enough.

Vic

Number 100. He works for a textbook publisher and wrote lengthy, question-filled messages to me. I googled him and found that he writes interesting short stories and reasonably good villanelles. He seemed so interested. And then he disappeared. I think I'm still going to invite him to the Wisconsin state fair with me, since he lives on the way, but I don't expect a response.

Ryan, Renee, and Tony

Tony could have been something, I think, if he'd been looking for something. We had a strangely old-couple-ish night on his couch, talking and working, followed by making out. He was working on a Ph.D in Music (composition). Ryan was an incorrigible slut who flirted with everyone, liked to drink, and didn't do a very good job of staying faithful to his girlfriend Angela. Ryan, his friend Renee, and I had a drunk three-way a few days before my 30th birthday, bringing my count up to 10. He yelled a lot but didn't come. I didn't get much out of it. The next afternoon, I went over to Tony's to make it 11. I don't think it was what either of us wanted. I never really saw any of them after that, although there have been a few brief and (for me) embarrassing encounters on the street.

Alex

We text-flirted. It was fun, and funny. He was going to do a sexy-dance for me in his undies. We were going to actually meet up, but he flaked out. Months later, he started with the flirty texts and said "we should hang out I won't flake out this time," but then there were long stretches with no contact. I pushed him, and he disappeared. And I know that if he can't manage to actually see me or even have an actual conversation, he isn't interested or isn't worth much. But the things he says, on his profile, at least, seem so well suited to me. I still think, sometimes, of trying again. I want to believe he is who I want him to be, all evidence to the contrary.

"the gubner"

Cute and interesting and gay, and I never wrote to her because I was scared and now her profile's missing.

Devin

Still hasn't texted back. Can't check the internet. Dammit.

Roommate Ben

The boy can TALK. Charming, well-spoken, wonderful voice. We talked about ninjas hiding in a mini-golf park. He likes to swing dance. Whenever I see him, I pine for a week afterwards. But he isn't interested.

917 Dearborn

2011-07-25T08:48:00.001-05:00

I'm blogging a lot these days, which mostly means typing them up in separate text documents (I hate Word, it always does terrible things when I try to copy/paste into blogspot), and waiting until I can take the accompanying photos or the next time I have internet access. Sometimes, after staring at the sad, yet-unposted, little things, I change my mind. Nothing to see here. It's not like I have grand revelations just waiting to unleash themselves on the world. I have nothing important to say.

I have a headache. Dehydration and poor sleeping habits, most likely. More the latter than the former.

I finished the books I was excited about, and am reading something I'd forgotten I owned back in Poway. It's sort of self-absorbed and whiny, or at least the narrator is, so it both suits and annoys me at the moment, since I am inclined to self-absorbtion and whinyness myself tonight.

I took measurements of my room so I can play around with different layouts on the computer at work tomorrow. I am putting off any unpacking until I decide on a layout, although I did put together the bedframe.

I have a skylight and more closet space than I can comprehend.

I think I'd like to paint a few walls. I've never painted walls before. It doesn't seem that difficult. The carpet is a light denim color, the walls are honey-colored wood. The ceiling only barely reaches above my head, which is why I get it, even though it's the biggest room in the house.

Our kitchen cabinets have been distributed by order of height. Kenda at the top, followed by Cassie, followed by me. It was Kenda's idea. I am grateful.

Fenna is gone. I wish we'd had more time to adventure.

Cassie will be back soon. I am glad.

This time

2011-07-25T08:41:00.001-05:00

Waiting really isn't the hardest part. No matter how acute the anticipation of pain or pleasure, it's still only the shadow cast in advance of the real thing.

So this isn't the hard part. It isn't even the shadow of the hardest part. I have so little at stake. His name, this time, is Devin. I am waiting.

family

2011-07-22T22:11:00.001-05:00

I'm the girl with the fucked up family. That's the story I've been telling as long as I can remember. We were some sort of sad parody of suburban America. Statistically, we were perfect: two parents, two children, a boy and a girl, occasional pets, living solidly middle-class lives in a sunny suburb in southern California. But I always felt that something was off. We didn't look right, for one, with a Chinese mother and ambiguously-ethnic children. And our furniture was always a little shabbier, our clothing not as nice, not because we were poorer than everyone else, but because we didn't have the tastes that should have gone with the lifestyle. And my brother and I were never very interested in that lifestyle. We went along on summer vacations to the Grand Canyon, we sat at family dinners. But I always felt like we were pretending at something, at a family dynamic we didn't actually feel.

And maybe this is because I saw it all through a thick haze of angst. Maybe our family was closer than I thought, or maybe it was just me sticking out, me who wasn't connecting. But I didn't connect. Not with my mother, who struggled with me since I was old enough to reject bedtime lullabies. Not with my brother, who I treated like a roommate, cordial but distant. Not even with my father, the only one I speak to these days. We enjoyed each other's company, but we didn't share. I kept my conversations carefully curated. (I attempted to curate conversations with my mother as well, but never as successfully.)

And now, I'm the girl who doesn't have a mother or brother. I know they're there, still, in a different sunny suburb, but there's a no-fly zone between us.

So, when I started to describe my trip to San Diego, it was a surprise to me to find myself saying "I like my family. It'll be good to see them."

It surprised me because it was true. It wasn't a platitutde to pretend that everything is fine. It wasn't something I said to sound normal, so I wouldn't have to explain why I only have half of my original family, or where my disconnect comes from. When I redefine "family" to mean "the family I have connections to," I find myself with a surprisingly healthy, happy, well-adjusted group of interesting people. Some of them I just met for the first time. Some of them have gone from 8 to 19 years old in the time since I'd seen them.

This newly-defined family is a family of teachers and engineers, from multiple ethnicities, countries, and cities. We are one professor of math, one professor of education, one high-school Spanish teacher, one middle-school P.E. teacher, one high-school shop teacher, one gardener, two mechanical engineers, two engineering students, one still-undecided college freshman, and three high-schoolers still exploring their interests. We talk shop around the dinner table: when and how students should specialize in their interests, the sad state of education funding.

My cousin Cora is coming to visit over spring break next year. I can't wait for you to meet her.

placeholder

2011-07-16T10:23:00.002-05:00

This post is a placeholder for the more cheerful one I will write later.

What We Are Doing Here

2011-07-15T09:59:00.003-05:00

When I tell people about my trip to San Diego, I put a good face on. My grandparents are fine, I say, we're just getting things settled. I forget the reason I asked if I should come home this summer. I wasn't sure that if I waited until Christmas that they would both be here. I said, I wasn't coming home because they were unwell, I was coming home to pack and carry.

They're not well.

My grandfather is frail. His cheeks are unshaven and his face is strangely still, the muscles slack. And there is something I can't recognize in his eyes.

We are not well.

My father tells us how, once when he left the house on Rolando Knolls, the house he grew up in and now is a caretaker for, the toilet did not stop running, and it kept running for two weeks until he came back and discovered it. His hands were clenched in front of him and he didn't look up.

I am not well.

We are sorting through the house to separate items with sentimental value, items that we would be interested in taking back to our respective homes, and items for the estate sale people to handle. I am going into acquisition mode. Look, stuff! I can have stuff! It's pretty cool stuff. There's a shiny gold purse, a silk brocade tablecloth, quilting books, a blue gingham apron. And then I feel guilty for coveting stuff, because it shouldn't be about getting stuff. This is the dismantling of my grandparent's lives. I want to be generous. I want to be helpful. I don't want this pile of stuff with a pink sticky note that says Angela. I don't want to want it. And I hate that I do.

screen printing is like magic

2011-07-12T21:03:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I haven't had a chance to take the photos I want to take. But here's a webcam shot of me at work in the shirt I screen printed yesterday evening before pub knit.

Fashion Week part III: Crazy-Crafty-Hipster-Girl

2011-07-12T09:13:00.007-05:00

OH MY GOD I LOVE COLOR

love bright colors. I love clashing colors. I love:

red and cyan
orange and cyan
purple and orange
lime green and orange
magenta and yellow

I love t-shirts that say something cool because I want people to think I'm funny and interesting. I love Natalee Dee and Threadless. I have a t-shirt with a pair of skyscraper-people scraping the sky, a shirt with a Leica M6 on it that says "Think Negative," and a shirt with a skull that says "I live inside your face."

I have t-shirts for:

Rock Island, IL
Akron, OH *
Oakland, CA **
Iowa **
Looking Glass Photo, Berkeley CA *
Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland OH *
El El Frijoles, Sargentville ME (my friend owns the restraunt)
Home Ec. Workshop, Iowa City IA **

* I've visited here
** I've lived here

I go for the crazy-crafter-hipster look. I go for clothes that look like they might have been home-made. I want to look crafty but not in a 70's kind of way but a knitter-on-the-NYC-subway kind of way. A tongue-in-cheek-kitchy kind of way. I just made a t-shirt that says "I'm being ironic." It is always true. I love dressing-down pretty skirts with old t-shirts. I have a baby-pink shiny-satin skirt that I like to wear with a battered gray "Akron: Where the Weak are Killed and Eaten" t-shirt. I have a blue satin brocade skirt I like to wear over jeans. I pair everything with my one pair of walk-around shoes which happen to be hot-pink-glittery Converse. Because I hate shoes without socks, the socks are neon colors and usually not matching. If my first reaction is "oh god that's AWFUL," it's usually followed by "I LOVE IT."

This post was originally intended to contain photos of said clothing. But there are some practical difficulties involved, so you will probably have to wait until I get back from San Diego.

Fashion Week part II: Shape and Silhouette

2011-07-11T13:42:00.002-05:00

I'm shaped like an apple on a very short stick. I've gained and lost a lot of weight in my life, but the basics always apply. My natural waist is high, the smallest point being only an inch or so under my boobs. My chest is big and my hips are small. I gain weight almost exclusively above my hips, which means that most of the time my waist is actually wider than my hips. My calves are compact, although still wide and round, given the shortness of bone they're attached to. My legs are sexy, my cleavage is generous. It's the stuff in-between that I struggle with.

That's what I have. What I like is actually the opposite. I LOVE pear shapes. I'd gladly give up 3 or 4 cup sizes if I could choose to re-distribute that volume to my hips and ass. God, I'd love a big ass and thighs. I don't want to be Cameron Diaz. Or, rather, I'd take her boobs as long as I could have Beyonce's ass. Since I don't, and won't, ever have that, I want clothes that are going to give the illusion of redistributing volume.

The other limiting body factor is the high variance in my weight. In January 2008 I weighed 245 pounds and had a 49" waist. In August of 2009 I weighed 185 pounds and had a 42" waist. As I write this, I weigh 210 pounds and have a 46" waist. Everyone's size changes a little by season or time of month, or incrementally up or down each year. But this is a lot to account for. Anything that doesn't have an elastic waist band is a risk. Double the risk if it can't be worn with a belt. At the moment, I am working on losing weight again. It's going more slowly than it did before, but I have confidence that I will continue to lose weight, which makes access to belts and elastic all that much more important.

With that in mind, I choose skirts that create definition between my waist and hips. I want a skirt that will have a snug, broad, waist band and then extend out beneath that. Flouncy, 50's style skirts work perfectly. The gathers at the waist add significant volume to my hips, and the wide bottom hem almost makes it look like I have an ass. A-line skirts work as long as they have enough stiffness to the fabric to actually hang in an A-shape. Straight-line skirts are acceptable as long the lines go outward from the waist before curving straight down. I'm short, and have good legs, so I wear my hemlines high. I'd rather have you catch a glimpse of my bike shorts under the skirt than play it safe with a modest hem.

The problem with 50's skirts is that they look silly with a belt (especially the generic, 1 ½" wide brown leather men's belt I usually wear). If I have an elastic waistband I give up on the waist shaping, but if I have a stiff waistband I run the risk of only being able to wear it for a few weeks before I change size again. Recently, Alisa at Home Ec Workshop showed me how to sew several strips of elastic into a thick waistband using small channels, so that the elastic part is the same thickness as the waistband, and I can have elastic in the back, but a solid band everywhere else. It's AMAZING. Pics to come. I promise.

I buy jeans with a goal of volume distribution as well, although they never work as well as a good skirt. Skinny jeans, no matter how stylish, are out of the question. I wear jeans loose and low, so that the volume of the denim and belt fall on my hips. I wear boot-cut legs to balance out my top. (Also, since I'm usually cutting off the bottom 4" of the legs, a boot-cut is almost a straight leg on me.) There isn't the nice broad waistband on my jeans like there is on a skirt to help shape my waist, but at least I can try to broaden my hips in contrast. Basically, anything that was cool in the mid-90's is flattering on me. Cargo pants make the pants more bulky, baggy jeans and tighter tops put more fabric where I need more volume and less fabric where I've got plenty already. Sometimes I'll layer a skirt over jeans in the winter so that I still have the silhouette of a skirt, but won't die while I wait for the bus.

I like shirts with low V-necks, to break up the giant expanse of fabric that is my bosom, and add some cleavage to sweeten the deal. I like shirts with sleeves, because I have arm-fat cleavage, a farmer tan, and self-inflicted, adolescent scars that I'd prefer to keep covered. I'll accept those little bitty sleeves that really just cover up the shoulder, although I prefer to have more. I find that I can only find shirts that either have high necks and real sleeves, or low necks and bitty sleeves, but never the combination I want. I like shirts that fit with about an inch of positive ease on the bust, which means there's plenty of positive ease everywhere else. Tight shirts make me uncomfortable, baggy ones cover up what little shape I've got. (I've got plenty of baggy shirts for hiding days, which still happen, but I make sure they're still bright and fun.) I picked up a tip from Fenna, which is layer a tight tank top under a t-shirt, which helps keep stuff in place but still gives me the looser look and feel of a t-shirt. Also, the tank often helps pack together the cleavage, which, like I said, I'm happy putting on display.

Up next: colors, logos and crazy-crafter-hipster-me

Fashion Week part I: Introduction

2011-07-11T13:02:00.002-05:00

Maybe it's because Fenna's been doing it, maybe it's because I've been sewing madly for the last few weeks, maybe it's because I've been having this what-can-I-wear-to-salsa-that-I-would-ever-wear conumdrum. Maybe it's just because if I don't talk about clothing I'm going to talk about what it means to have tried and failed at something 100 times, about perseverance and failure and how that makes me feel. (It makes me feel shitty.) So instead I've decided to write down my fashion manifesto.

I talk a lot about how I don't care about my clothes. I'm a sloppy seamstress, I don't bother to hem, I cut my own hair with dull scissors in the bathroom, and I only own six pairs of shoes. Five of those pairs are speciality shoes that I only wear on specific occasions. Like snow boots or interview shoes or jogging shoes. But when I say "I don't care," it's not entirely true.

The thing is, everything is a decision. Even if it's the least important decision in the world, even if it doesn't "mean" anything, I still picked THOSE shoes over THOSE shoes, over THOSE ones. There is still a personal, individual, taste that appears. This is similar to what I tell people who are struggling to write an artist statement. They say "I just make what I like, that's all." And I say, "That's true. But there is more than one true story about your work. You make what you think is beautiful, but your sense of beauty is not mine, or theirs, or anyone else's but your own. So what are the things that YOU are drawn to? You have a sense, you have a style, you have interests, even if you choose them unconsciously."

For a long time, I made those decisions based on a desire to not be seen. I wore plain, baggy, t-shirts in gray, black, or navy, and baggy jeans. It wasn't that I didn't care, it was that what I cared about was hiding. Seeing myself was painful, so I avoided it as much as possible. In the last few years, I have been addressing that hurt, confronting it, pushing at it. I started wearing brightly colored baggy t-shirts. Then I lost some weight and started wearing brightly colored better-fitting t-shirts. I still chop off my hair myself, haphazardly and with little concern for straight lines or proportion. I don't care that my hair is uneven and my clothes are ragged, but that doesn't mean I don't care at all. I do pay attention to how I look and dress. I care about those things, but I'm working off a different set of values. So the next few entries are about those values. Why I wear what I wear, what my goals are, what I'm drawn to and why.

It may actually take more or less than a week, but for the sake of a good title, welcome to Fashion Week at Things I Might Forget.

he could, he could

2011-07-10T22:35:00.004-05:00

So I'm giving up on Vic writing back. It doesn't really change anything, because my actions when I believe, and when I don't believe are the same. Either way, there is nothing to do. Except now I'm not waiting while I do nothing.

And people say, "You don't know why. You can't interpret and guess at every little thing, it's not necessarily anything to do with you, he could be busy, he could have a life, he could..."

But the thing is, none of it matters. I don't really care why. He doesn't write. What difference does anything else make?

100

2011-07-10T09:42:00.004-05:00

I did a re-count, and there was one extra message I'd sent. I didn't post it, because it was just a "psssst... here's an answer to a question you ask on your profile," and not anything designed to get a response back. But it still counts, since I'm also counting the messages I write to far away people that I'm not trying to meet, either.

Which means I've now written 100 messages.

I feel like something should happen now. I don't want to do anything, but I'd really like it if the Universe could come together and make something happen to commemorate this. 100 fucking messages. 100 people I've reached out to, trying to make a connection. What I'd really like, is for guy #100 to write me back.

According to my artist's statement,

Between April 15, 2009, and July 3, 2011, I have sent 100 first messages in response to personal ads on craigslist.org and okcupid.com.

These messages are an expression of self. More specifically, they are expressions of the self I want others to see. They are expressions of hope. Each one is a love affair I might have had. I look at them, together, and wonder what they add up to, all those lives I imagined. I try to catalog them, categorize them, study them. I am struggling to make sense of them. I believe that I am here, somewhere, in these messages, in all this data, if I only knew where to look.

In the two years since I started, I have gone from 29 years old to 31. I have finished graduate school. I have lost, and gained, and lost significant amounts of weight. I have gained, and lost, and gained significant amounts of confidence. I moved twice, worked six different jobs, had sex with six people, and visited six new states. I made new friends, grew closer to old friends, began writing again, and spun a LOT of yarn. I have started growing gray hairs. I have, slowly, and haltingly, started to refer to myself as a woman.

Message #99

2011-07-04T11:20:00.001-05:00

His name is Jorge

2011-07-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

broken up

2011-06-23T22:10:00.005-05:00

It feels so good to have a name for the way things are. A reason. I am transitioning. I am coming to grips, after a year, that I'm not in school anymore. I am moving on. The two long-term relationships I ended each took a year for me to start trying to date again. Apparently, when I said I had recently "broken up" with school, I meant it more than I knew. I was waiting my year in limbo. And now I'm not.

Tonight I had appetizers and fizzy, smoking, brightly colored drinks with a friend I like a lot. She's a resident at the hospital, and a mom and in several romantic relationships, some of them long distance, so I don't see her often. Sometimes, when she gets time off, she calls me. And that makes me happy.

drift

2011-06-23T09:10:00.001-05:00

The dancing instruction I hate the most is "don't _____ until/unless I tell you to."

No shit. You lead a move and I follow it. So since I _____ed, OBVIOUSLY it's because I thought you were leading it. I'm totally willing to own to making a mistake, but it's a different mistake. It's "I misread that signal," not "I have no idea how social dancing works." Fuck you.

But, besides for that, salsa last night was a lot of fun. I still don't like the music as much, but I'm starting to feel less like a swing-girl putting up with salsa because it's the best she can get, and doing a clumsy job at it, and more like someone who wants to learn something new. Next time, I bring my character shoes.

The theme this summer seems to be paradigm shifting. I feel like I'm stretching, and it's not comfortable, and it's weird, but it will settle eventually.

I'm going to be the kind of girl who knows her way around heavy machinery. Who has metal chips in the soles of her shoes.

I'm slowly watching as old habits stop functioning, and social groups drift. Or, they stay the same, and I am slowly drifting. For the last year, I've been trying to hold on to the life I had, and it isn't working. I like the Iowa Underground Art Scenesters. But I'm not one of them. I'm realizing that I need to stretch out, and call people I don't usually call. I need to make my place here.

Alex

2011-06-19T20:33:00.003-05:00

I was fine writing you out. But, yeah, I'd love to write you back in. I'm trying to not be excited. Please. Don't fuck with me.

Angela

p.s. John Waters says hi

letters #97 and #98

2011-06-12T22:47:00.002-05:00

getting really close now