Housekeeping

I have gotten feedback about the Mirror Experiment Arc from several of my friends. When I started the experiment, I did not think I was ugly. If I have any opinion on how I look, it leans towards thinking I’m pretty. I think I have a pretty cute nose - I even say it on the March 13th post! Goodness, I was on a run/stroll this morning at 6:45 am, gave the time to a passing stranger, was wrangled into a conversation about a coming-soon cheese and deli store (I have to tell Tiger Lilly about this), and in the course of that conversation was told I was pretty. I don’t have low self-esteem or poor body image! I don’t think I’m ugly! My purpose was to investigate the body, the spirit-self, and how other people see my spirit-self based on my physical interface.

If anything, I also liked the idea of watching. Without a mirror to remind me that other people could see me, it's almost like I was invisible. (Think of Morrison's image of Pecola wishing to dissolve into nothing but a pair of floating eyes. In the irrelevant vein of disembodied ocular organs, think of Emerson's floating eye, too. Er, maybe it was Thoreau's.) Not so, and the fact that other people see us, too, can be a dangerous thing to forget.

In my theory class, I have been getting frustrated because structuralists, feminists, and postmodernists we have discussed have been using complicated and roundabout language. Now I think I am beginning to understand just how difficult theoretical writing can be, and just how difficult it is to write quick blog posts without sending readers the wrong message about my self-esteem. Or anything else, for that matter.