Short Hair and the Litany of Cuteness

I arrived to find Emer and Wesley playing cards at the Hiawatha house Friday before last. The house smelled deliciously of garlic. Fresh garlic, old garlic, garlic breath, garlic sweat. Or maybe it was fennel, or cinnamon, or yeast. It smelled of unwashed hair soaked in hormones, oils and kisses, of laundry and shoes covered in mud. It smelled of Amber oil, dumpstered leather and spells, dreams and depression, quickies and long, fantastical masturbatory sessions with KEXP floating in the background. It smelled of laughter and bubbling beer bellies and fingernail art, love and adjustment, plans and parties, time in it's ever evolving state of dying youth.

Emer smiled at me, the ring in her upper gum glinting at me with it's usual element of surprise; that brave piercing on such a brave woman. Emer the traveler, the woman with hair of gossamer and hay in curly tendrils of no adorable sort. Rather, the dapper sort you would find on a retired hair band producer. The kind I want to touch purely to know that I am making contact with her, which would make me feel like I was in her gang of cool feminine strength.

I made an entrance with my hair, now once again chopped to allow for new possibilities, and she told me I looked cute, corrected herself, and then told me what she meant to tell me what that I looked good. Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, beautiful knowing Emer with your hips of power and your winning hand of cards. We discussed our feelings about the word cute, and its seeming passive aggression where there is usually none, and the twinges of "wrong" that pass through our chests when we are identified with this term.

I had described my haircut hopefully and proudly as "Edward Cullen meets Tinkerbell". I had taken photos of myself in my peacoat on my way to school looking cool and androgenously magical in my own eyes. Perhaps I need more styling experience, or I'm a little blind to myself, or I take myself too seriously (this is true regardless), OR I am simply doomed to be cute forever. It's not that I would rather be beautiful, it's that I would rather be awesome. I want to look as though I have wings but they are only reserved for coitus, as though I fell out of the pocket of a mad toymaker, as though I were a nineteen forties baseball player, nose and cheeks pink, scratching the underside of my tits between innings. I do not want to look proper, stylistically pretty or handsome. I do not want to look young or old per say... I just want to look awesome.

Poni and I looked at the beautiful family photos my parents had framed for me for Christmas this year. My hair is chin length in the photos, ridiculously curly, as it seems to get curlier as I get older, dyed orange on one side, my bangs choppy and oddly asymmetrical. He touched the picture me and said he kind of missed my hair that length, and I was of course sent down memory lane to all the awkward relationship interactions I have had over the years having to do with such superficiality as my hair. He likes my hair now, he says, it's just that he misses the other hair, too. And this to me is like hearing, "I look forward to the day months and months from now when you will be beautiful to me again. I hope you finish this phase soon!" And while he didn't mean to communicate this to me, the highly suspicious part of me didn't want to cuddle anymore that night.

I suppose the biggest blow is that while I may try over and over again to be a certain thing, a certain ideal I have created in my head with the help of Burberry and a League of Their Own, and Bilbo Baggins and Natalie Portman, I will never be perceived in the way I would prefer. The voice, the big boobs on the tiny body, the more angular cheekbones atop a more papery jawline, all of these classify me as....well cute is definitely one thing I may always be. My Grandmother was always cute. I wonder if she ever wanted to be some sort of strutting rooster like I would.

Will I always be an adolescent? I certainly don't feel like one. Can I drop the cute despite my physical smallness? Am I small at heart. Is the feminine the cute?

Thing is, I still look in the mirror and see Edward Cullen mixed with Tinkerbell. I don't see the huge jugs or the missing hair or the cute. But one can't always take breaks to go back and check the mirrors to make sure one's reflection hasn't changed. I have to trust my inner voice, no matter the proverbial cheek pinching I endure with so much patience.

Blog Block

Sorry I haven't written, blogspot. It's the holidays. It was finals week. Why on Earth do the proverbial "they" choose to subject us crafty folk to such double pressures? My mind whirring with business reports, where to find a decent Kinkos where ANY employee has actually used a computer in their lifetime, alien-lady fashion drawings galore, and Christmas gifts (which always take longer to put together than originally intended...and somehow, if I finish them at all early, they seem less special than when the original cash was handed over for them, the final crafty details added, the note signed in sincerity, etc., than if I was to finish them in a flurry on the fated X-mas Eve). My mind was all cloudy with too many snacks and not enough real food, relationship subtleties, and endless lists. And the lists of lists. The lists of things I owe Ponikins money for as he has been so kind to do all of our erranding while I cram my brain with the historic details of aristocratic costume. The lists of people I need to see, call and have cut my hair. The lists that grow as I spend hours examining my new haircut in the mirror wondering if I look like a soccer mom. (Yes...I cut my hair again. Let's hope this current phase of shrinking hairstyles doesn't lead to the oft inevitable buzz cut. As much as I think I might look better than many with that haircut, it still doesn't suit me.)

So! The only thing I was able to do with any energy in the sexy santa suit Poni gave me this year was watch Conan and occasionally get up to stuff yet another necessity into my luggage. Poni and I have both spent some time in Seattle for a stint, and now he and I are in our respective parental locations. I considered writing about footy pajamas for this blog, as Poni is somehow able to make these full-force onsies somehow sexy(...and I am missing his polar-fleeced booty this holiday). Kinda reminds me of a date I went on in New York that involved costuming myself in tight-ass ladyalls (overalls for ladies, i.e. overalls with boob cups). They were a bitch to peel off and that was the point. New Yorkers are pushy. Onsies, although hard to pee in, are both sexy and a functional chastity "belt". Wait...now that I'm remembering correctly, they are not. But they do create an illusion of chastity and security, which is somehow sexy on it's own. That whole can't-catch-me thing. That I'll never choose pleasure over dignity thing. That just try to get this stick out of my ass long enough to go parking thing. These days it seems relationships are like strings of investments in one's business portfolio as opposed to long-lasting romantic partnerships.

Anyway, it's Christmas Eve and my mother is attempting to get me to read Martha's directions on how to roast a turkey. The standbys of Christmas at home: Helping mother prepare copious amounts of fattening meats, Northern Exposure, spiked cider, Martha Stewart binges, suddenly finding time for reading, and now, in place of horseback riding (my beloved Cosby passed away this fall), running with my Dad and his band of super-fit executive commuter buddies. They all wore REI slick gear and danced circles around me as I scuttled sweatily behind them clad in American Apparel bullsh*t running shorts and grunge gear.

I had better get to turkey business. Giblets....gross. I shall be keeping Lady Gaga's meat dress in mind as I handle the tender bird parts, making every moment chic, as always. (Ha!)

Sexy Santa Suits

So I really really want one of those sexy Santa suits I've seen in specialty stores along Hollywood Blvd. They look like this:


I would hopefully wear it to something like this:

No, I'm just kidding. I wouldn't wear it out...at least not to a dance party. Maybe the beach! That would be a Los Angeles Christmas I could get jazzed about! It puts me in a misty, fuzzy haze to gaze at Santa-suited mannequins all lined up sexy in their fluorescent-lit window displays...next to the bong store, with the Converse store on the other side, of course. I imagine myself a sexy candy cane lady Queen with Irmine firs and red velvet (rather than the highly flammable stuff displayed on Hollywood) draped in small, yet sexy quantities over my forever-warm-and-young-despite-the-forever-snow shimmering bod.... Mr. or Mrs. Claus? Who knows. When your nipples are this cozy, who cares?

What is it about this particular trend of sexy girl costume apparel that really glosses over my feminist theory and general irritation of mass-produced sexy silliness? Maybe it's the simplicity of the season...my Libra moon likes the limited choices. For the holidays, a girl could be a sexy Santa, a sexy Mrs. Claus (though no one could tell the difference), or perhaps a sexy elf, whereas during Halloween one could be anything from a sexy bee to a sexy lumberjack to a sexy leper or what have you these days. It's far too overwhelming, and that much more annoying in part because: Somehow, you really can turn almost ANYTHING into sexy girl wear. It's overwhelming for me when things get too slutty, not because I feel judgy about sluts, but because I get all wrapped up in the "be them or do them?" dilemma all over again. It can be highly confusing in general to be a femme sometimes. I feel like I would be that weird queer girl who wouldn't be invited to the pool party or slumber party in the eighties teen flick, but no one would know the wiser because: Hey! I get just as excited about nail polish and sparkles as they do with my obviously heterosexual wardrobe. Actually, I remember thinking in high school that to come out might jeopardize any slumber party status I might have, and this certainly slowed my process down. But I digress...

I am drinking in the sugary sweet holiday season this year in huge, enthusiastic gulps. Poni and I have our mouse-house laden in ridiculous holiday cheer, Glee Christmas music playing on repeat for too many days now. It's disgusting. I have been attempting to take care of a few key Christmas-y things before I head home for the holidays next week AND study for my final exams, also next week, and this is all getting much too exciting. I find the content of my classes extremely stimulating, and I feel the same way about Christmas this year. I imagine myself a Disney Christmas bird, shivering, screeching and singing for pure excitement. Somehow Christmas colored without intending to be so. Christmas in India last year was fun, but I was dreadfully homesick.

I don't feel homesick in Los Angeles. There is something seductive about the tough-love quality of this city. I do love a good tease, and I have fallen in love with the rock star once again, this time in city form. I feel challenged to forever seek its approval, though it will in turn forever choose its career over our relationship. Only the sexy aloof Leo-city Los Angeles could somehow turn my head from the dark intensity of the love I feel for Scorpio Seattle. I know Seattle will cradle me with its cold, pale, tattooed arms and remind me of my true Northwest alliance for a couple of weeks. It will remind me that fashion does not always include long, Brazilian-blown locks and draped jersey. It will remind me what good coffee is. All of the burlesque and drag queens will help to clarify why, in fact, do I want a sexy Santa costume?

I will report back on this later. Happy holidays, and remember to make the yuletide GAY!!!!!

[Some] Hunky Hipster Gays

Sometimes I call Ponikins my "Baby Bear," which is fitting for him, and gurgly-cute-exciting for me, especially when I am screeching at him in my most high-pitched and angry beeb (bird) voice and preparing to pounce...Or when I am tenderly running my fingers through his perfectly-oiled raven locks while we discuss our plans for home improvement...Or when he is fussing over something and his cheeks do that thing where they look both tense and squishy at the same time.

The term might be more aptly applied, however, (with no offense, or any invalidation to anyone's identity intended) to a recently recognizable breed of queer I like to call the "hipster gay." These man-hunks of musky masculinity mixed with the carefully carefree styling of a culturally informed and relevant young person...ooze a new kind of gay. A refreshing kind of gay that does not offend my comfortably half-hearted everyday style. My whole life I've felt that I could never be a fag hag. Sometimes I smell like a human. Sometimes I like to mis-match my clothes on purpose. Sometimes I look like a mixture between a Muppet Baby and a tacky granny. All the fags I've known with hags, until recently, have been exquisitely polished, spray tanned, rich, and bitchy. Their hags are the same way. Usually Blond, some sort of executive or married to one, equally bitchy. Kens and their Barbies, but with the Kens showing their true rainbow colors (I mean, right?!) But these Hipster gays are a perfect combo of gently cruddy old-school style and emotionally available.

I may have found a breed of fag I could be a new breed of hag to.

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Also...this week in EXCITING fashion