Paradox of Perfection

Ever since reading "Don't Give Up Your Day Job," I can't stop squirming over this notion of perfectionism. I frequently use the word "perfect," but then I'll go off on some linguistic philosophical rant about how there's no such thing as "perfection" and it's a myth and the word and idea is a massive paradox and I hate it. (I'm a hypocrite, I know. What can I say? I'm not perfect!) When Bennetts said, "Perfectionism is the bane of women's existence. Everything out there is just harping on women to perfect various aspects of themselves. The message is always: you should be better, and it's the wrong message." I just about jumped out my chair and yelled, "YES! THIS! EXACTLY!" It IS the wrong message for a multitude of reasons. "Should" is a horrible word. It's kind of like when Yoda tells Luke, "Do or do not. There is no try." Do, be, say, or don't. I'm not going to get into that any further right now. Next: perfectionism is the bane of anyone's existence in whatever area they're trying to be perfect in because it's a goal that is not achievable. So, you "should" lose ten pounds and you'll be perfect. Okay, so you do lose ten pounds, and you're still not perfect in your own mind, in the society's standards, in all the various institutions and influential forces that are telling you to be perfect.

"Perfectionism is the bane of women's existence. Everything out there is just harping on women to perfect various aspects of themselves. The message is always: you should be better, and it's the wrong message."
I just love that quote so much.

happy union

I thought this was a joke when I first saw the image. Like, photoshopped and put on the internet kind of "joke." Turns out the brand Madhouse really did put this on their tag. What's really sad to me personally is how many men I've known who never learned to do laundry until they went to college (I taught my boyfriend AND his roommate at my first college), and I'm sure I know some full grown men, parents or grandparents perhaps, who never learned to do laundry because their mothers did it for them until their wives did. I like doing laundry, personally. My father does most of the laundry in our home, and I have to hide my hamper from him because I actually WANT to do my own haha This is not funny as I'm sure it was intended to be. I got particularly steamed (no pun intended) when I read the comments left on the blog where this image was posted. I'll just let you see for yourself.

Sexist trousers blog entry

I would like to shake this woman's hand, and then I would hope we could use those hands to smack some of the commentators.

Eyes on the Prize

Of all the essays in chapter 6, I found Selden McCurrie's "Eyes on the Prize" to be the most intriguing and inspiring. Besides that it's written beautifully ("On July 29th I was initiated into a vast unwilling sisterhood..."), it does a great job of chronicling the entire journey of breast cancer. I now know so much more about what a woman faces when she is diagnosed. I didn't know there were so many different choices pertaining to surgery and post-surgery breasts/bras, and I didn't know there were so many different kinds of breast cancer. McCurrie tells the story so that you feel her fear and confusion and frustration and, in the end, happiness with her through the whole piece. Of course, it has a happy ending (she wouldn't really be able to write the essay if it hadn't gone well, I suppose), which is not the case for most breast cancer patients, but then again that's a bit of the point she was making: this is a very scary thing, her situation was particularly serious, she could have died, and now she's a proud survivor, a stronger woman. I laughed out loud when I read the last line of the 2nd-to-last paragraph: "I still tear up when I think of all the women who opened their hearts and their shirts to me, as I made a difficult decision." Love it!

Lolz at Rush Limbaugh

SNL: Cold Open

Sad Day For Austinites

When I was a little girl, there was an Albertson's grocery store up the road from my house. A man started living out of a trailer in the parking lot there, and we'd see him in all sorts of risque and/or women's clothing: wedding dresses, bikinis, so on and so forth, always with some sweet high heel pumps. My friends and I dubbed him "Bikini Man." His real name was Leslie Cochran, and he became an Austin legend. He was at every event that we proudly held as Keeping Austin Weird. He kept Austin weird. He even ran for mayor once. If you saw him on the street, he'd say hi to you, he'd take a picture with you, he was everyone's best friend.
He's recently had some health issues, and he had to have brain surgery last week.

Today he died from complications with the surgery.

Austin is a lot less weird without you, Leslie Cochran.

Rest in peace, my hometown cross-dresser. You will be missed.

haunted

I find it ironic, for lack of a better word, that I'm having a fantastic day (well, "fantastic" is a bit of an overstatement, but a good day nonetheless) until suddenly, out of friggin' NOWHERE, I'm hit by a wave of... nothingness. Pure absence hit me like a ton of bricks. I was putting homemade chocolate chip cookies into a tupperware container to give to my neighbor, the Jane Doe I wrote my essay about, and I froze. My eyes fixed on the wall in front of me, but it was like I was looking far past the wall, not necessarily through it, just.... past it, at something else. But I wasn't looking at anything at all. I dropped a cookie off of the spatula in my hand, and as it hit the counter I snapped out of my.. trance, or whatever. Since then I've felt entirely dissociated. It's not sadness, it's not anger, it's not depression, is just... nothing. Nothing at all. But not the good kind of nothing. Not the throw-my-arms-up-and-laugh-because-I-don't-feel-a-thing, or the narcotized bliss kind of nothing, it's really, really nothing.
I finished putting away the cookies and put some laundry in the washer. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, deciding that a nice Yuengling and a hot, hot bubble bath would make me feel so much better. It always does. I turned the faucet on hot. Very hot. My close boy-friend called right as I was sending him a text message to say that I was feeling out of sorts and needed a bath. He's the only person who has never made me angry, never left me without at least a smirk, if not a full smile and laughter, on my face. We spoke as I drew my bath and climbed in. He wasn't helping. When we got off the phone, I threw mine down into the tile floor and said, "Leave me alone." I was surprised. At his annoyance, at my getting annoyed, but mostly at the ten tears that followed.
Yes, I counted.
Three from my right eye, seven from my left.
3/7
Huh. Funny. Isn't that today's date?