Hot Chocolate, Library Cafe, and Friends

I had lunch today with a few of the friends I've made at Church, and afterwards I had coffee with another friend. It was nice to sit and chat for a while - after living in Spain for a while, I think I forgot what it was like to follow regular social convention, be aware of nuances, and be polite. I feel like today I regained whatever I had been missing.

I Remember Why I Love Life so Much

Not to suggest that I didn't love life before, but this song reminds of the past-perfect utopia that we conjure in memories. The first time I heard this song, it was a very happy time, and a person I love shared it with me, and I just want to quietly, contentedly celebrate life whenever I hear it.

Iron and Wine - Love and Some Verses

If only songs didn't have to have endings...

Things I've Learned so Far

I’m taking a page out of The Doctor’s blog and putting a post up about the things I have learned so far. I think every experience can be a valuable wellspring of knowledge, experience, joy, life, etc., gushy flowery words etc. In a less sarcastic sentence, I think that these things really are valuable for me to know, and that they add more to this experience which we call “Life.” I am hopeful that this list will be expanded later in the summer and in 2010.

• The Haribo gummy candy brand does not have an all-around high standard of quality gummies. Their Gold Gummy Bears might be fantastic and made with real fruit juice, but their Tropifrutti candy is like eating old gum injected with fluoride.

• Kinder Eggs aren’t really German. A Venezuelan told me they were American, but then Wikipedia said they were really from Italy. They are only wildly popular in Germany.

• Germans think that everything comes from their country. Although Germany is great for many reasons, and they do offer a lot of high-quality products and services (I will only accept food processors that were made in Germany when I get married), don’t buy into their propaganda too much.

• Olive oil really does make everything better. Except for your clothes. Everything must have at least one weakness.

• I hate ants.

• Ants are much, much better than cockroaches. (Mom, we don’t have cockroaches, I’m just trying to be positive about the ants.)

• Latin American men grow up knowing how to dance. They might not know how to dance well, but at least they can dance.

• There is always a way to get where you want to go. It might not be the cheapest, and it might not be the quickest, but you’ll get there eventually.

• If you’re not happy about something, speak up. You will be happier, and the other people probably won’t be much inconvenienced.

• No matter how much I try, I cannot bring the right-sized bag to any even or occasion. (I’m not going to generalize this to the rest of you.) If I go to work, my bag is too big. If I go out hiking, my bag is too small. If I go out dancing, I should bring no bag at all. May you have better luck with your bags than me.

• In Europe, bring your own hand towel and toilet paper to the bathroom. Some hand sanitizer would be a good idea, too.

• Never buy anything type of clothing that doesn’t immediately strike your fancy. It’s like an A-ha kind of moment. If you start singing “Take on Me,” that is a good sign. If the dulcet tones do not start to play in your head, use this other test: everything should make sense in the moment you see the item and you know you want to buy it. Using this formula, you should end up with a closet of things that you like and never use the edges of your closet for the things you don’t like. (Sweaters from Auntie Mame are an exception, hee hee.) I’ve been trying to use this formula for the past several years, and it doesn’t seem to work as well as I think it should. I don’t know why I told you to do this.

• It’s okay to live in a European country where you don’t know the language. You should probably know an additional language other than your mother tongue, though.

Just a few thoughts from Lizzle. I know some of these things are more specific than others. I’m thinking specifically of the Tropifrutti candies. I can’t help it; they’re sitting right next to me. Despite their terrible taste, I kept eating them. I think I need my stomach pumped now.

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.

The Leg Experiment: Shedding the Cocoon

In starting the leg experiment, I had no clear goals in mind. I was tired of shaving, and I did not feel that I had to conform to social mores. Four months later, I still have no solid goals in mind, but I have more reasons to continue not to shave. I have two this time: one biological and the other social. Without the supple foaming action of shaving cream, my legs haven’t been regularly moisturized, and I think the skin might be getting more blemishes – and perhaps a little tougher.

I also want to see how people react to a young woman who does not shave her legs - this is the social component. I haven’t talked much about my leg hair with my friends, and neither have I been exposing my leg hair. Much of the time I wear pants or long skirts, but this will change. I’m still more than a little self-conscious about the length and darkness of my leg hair. I’ve shown the growth many a time to Boudica and to Lala; Boudica reassures me every Sunday before I go to Church that she can’t see my leg hair. With summer quickly approaching, the cocoon needs to be shed, and my social world will know that I have leg hair!

A few weeks ago during spring break, Morwen, Tex, Tiger Lilly, and I went to the beach. I could not hide my leg hair there, and as we hung out on the sand and meandered along the boardwalk, I was a little self-conscious. I watched other people’s eyes to see if they darted to my ankles. Of all the people whose faces I peered into, only one or two flicked their eyes towards my lower half. Even then, I can’t be sure if they were looking at my leg hair. Morwen, Tex, and Tiger Lilly said not a word about my leg hair, but they know, I’m sure of it. It’s hard to miss.

I felt more comfortable uncovering my legs at the beach because, aside from my three friends, I was rubbing shoulders with people I was never going to see again. It’s a little different when I’m sitting in class twice a week next to the same people. They don’t care, but I think they care, and therein lies the crux of the matter.

The Mirror Experiment: The End of the Line

I uncovered my mirrors again. I realized that although I felt more like I was a whole, unified "me" when I could not see my reflection, I was at risk of going too far. To use the proverbial phrase, I was making "a mountain out of a molehill." Before reading a brief segment of Lacan's "The Mirror Stage," I had not thought much about being alienated from myself or recognizing the other in my image. It is useful to think about how the other might see us and be aware of the other, but there is so much more which occurs beneath the image we present. It does not take a French psychiatrist to tell me that I am also my hopes, fears, thoughts, aspirations, joys, sorrows, experiences, and responses, to name a few. Barring religion, I am the person who can best understand myself. That French psychiatrist might be able to give me a few suggestions as to why I think the way I do, but he cannot tell me what I think.

In covering my mirror, I started to feel more whole, but I also treated that wholeness with more importance than it deserved. De-emphasizing my appearance was unnecessary for my well-being, and had I continued that course of action, I might have developed psychological problems about images and the self further down the line.

My mother taught me very well as a was growing up: stick to the middle path. In trying the "Mirror Experiment," I swerved over to one extreme of the path for a while. By ending the experiment, I feel back on track to where I want to go. At least, that is, in regards to mirrors.

The Leg Experiment: The Pits

Note: If armpits gross you out, skip to the next post.

In addition to letting my leg hair grow, I decided not to shave my armpits. I would tell you that everything had been going along swimmingly until the weather started warming up, but that wouldn't be truthful. Sometimes in the shower, the armpit hair would pull uncomfortably.

All of a sudden on Monday the weather became nice, so I donned capped-sleeve shirt.s. (I'm still too self-conscious to wear hems above my knees unless I'm wearing tights) However, when I lifted my arms to a 45 degree angle, my armpits caught my attention. Hair poked out of my shirt sleeve. I'm not adverse to some hair showing, but it was like straw sticking out of an overstuffed scarecrow. This is the first time I have been legitimately grossed out by my hair; sometimes I think my legs look mannish, but I can conquer that thought. Not so this time.

On Tuesday I noticed that some deodorant had gotten caught in my hair. I won't go into too many details, but I was yet again grossed out. The hair in my armpits was a nice covering for such a sensitive area, but the length had gotten out of control. (I am reminded of an episode of the "Fairly Odd Parents" where the protagonists' parents don't practice personal hygiene. The protagonist's mother was able to make ropes out of her armpit hair and swing from building to building. Mine was not quite that long nor that strong.)

While taking a shower Tuesday evening, I thinned out some of the hair in my arm pit. I didn't raze it all, just took out the biggest tufts. It didn't hurt, of which I was glad. Now the armpit hair is shorter, more manageable, and I'm not as self-conscious when I wear those cap-sleeved shirts.

The Leg Experiment

During the break between Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 semesters, I stopped shaving my legs. I was tired of having to constantly worry about my legs and their hairiness. Simply put: I was lazy.

After three months of nary a drop o’ Nair on my legs, I feel I understand that shaving has been conditioned into us. I knew it before, but I hadn’t thought about the ways in which it is conditioned. I recall summer volleyball practices just before the beginning of my senior year of high school where we would compare length of leg hair. I wore knee socks while playing to keep my legs warmer and to scrape of some of the dirt my shoes picked up. But I also wore them to cover up my hairy legs, and I only shaved the part of my thighs that showed between the sock and kneepad and my spandex.

It seems to be a practice among teenage girls – or at least as much as I can remember – to say how long it had been since they shaved. “I haven’t shaved in five days,” might have been the average, but then if someone reached the two week-period, the façade of disgust displayed by the other females in the peer group would turn into real repulsion. Any hair longer than a quarter inch was taboo. As we were stretching before practice one day, one of my sophomore buddies and I were chatting, and we got onto the subject of shaving. When she showed me the growth, I said that was nothing and pulled back my sock to reveal how much my own hair had grown. She winced as she laughed.

When we shaved our legs, we would make sure our teammates saw. We would know they knew we were performing this act of femininity. We would make our friends come over and rub their finger up and down our shins to feel how silky smooth we could get our skin. (Oh goodness, I’m really a feminist now. Yay! But I feel conditioned to say that running a forefinger up and down a fellow female teammates’ shin is symbolic of sexual desires and desire for the other body that is still the same as yours, that is like yours. I don't actually believe that last sentence.) It would tickle. If I rubbed my own legs, I couldn’t tell where I was feeling the most sensation – in my fingertip or in the skin of my shin.

My leg looks nothing like our society’s conception of a female’s leg. The feminine leg is supposed to be made of clear-cut lines and curves, a distinct barrier between the end of the skin and the air surrounding it. When I see the dark, inch-long hair, I think of my brother’s leg. I almost feel as if it’s not part of me.

Then I go jogging outside. Sensation suddenly floods back to my legs, sensation that has been denied for the eight years I’ve been shaving. I can feel the air currents my legs generate, and it is like Aeolus is continually kissing my shins, my ankle, whatever the skin covering the gastrocnemius is called (Calf? I must really have wanted to use the name of that muscle). My body is me. My legs are me. The hair sticks into the air at odd angles, exploring the world around my legs and interacting with it. The boundaries are not clear anymore. The hairs catch every cross-breeze. As fish can sense the change in water pressure and move accordingly in a group, so my legs can now feel air pressure when they move against one another. They are fuzzy. The prickle has gone out of them. Whenever I shower, my hair gathers in small bunches to mimic the rivulets that form as the water drips off me.

I can feel the world around me with my calves. I've gotten part of myself back again.

The Mirror Experiment

On Sunday, I decided to cover up the mirror over my sink and the mirror in my closet. Ideas had been bouncing around in my head, ideas about Lacanian’s theories of the self. I do not profess to have any great knowledge of what Lacan was trying to say in “The Mirror Stage,” but a thread of his theory has stayed with me: by looking in the mirror, I alienate myself from myself. By looking at myself in the mirror, I do not see me but rather how other people see me. Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s novel says that the essential is invisible. An essential part of me is invisible, as well – but here I start treading on thin ice. By veering into the territory of the “invisible,” I inevitably think of abstract, disembodied concepts. The mind is invisible, and if we think of the mind, then diametric opposite which follows naturally is the body. Thank goodness that in everyday jargon we don’t readily think of the mind/body dichotomy. I might say that we allow a trichotomy of mind/body/soul. However, we can lump mind/soul together, leaving us still to contend with the dichotomy of internal/external. May I have a third option? The essence of who I am does not lie more in the mind than the body, or the body more than mind. I am both. My body and how I think – not to mention how I feel – are me.

I covered up my mirrors because I did not want to alienate my perception of myself from who I actually am any longer. I grabbed a scarf and darkened the mirror, and doing so felt like cutting a string that tied me, wrist-to-wrist, to a vague presence. I didn't even know that presence existed until it was gone. The scarf covering the mirror is crocheted in an elaborate pattern, and though I can still see the mirror through the holes, it is like I have control over the portal to a mystical land. I know most poignantly that the mirror is still there, as did my roommate and probably most of my friends who have come to our room since I covered them. I do not have to look at myself when I brush my teeth, brush my hair, put in my contacts, get dressed.

My roommate’s mirror remains uncovered, however. When I am in a rush or can’t help myself, I take a peek in the mirror to make sure my hair parts the way it usually does, to make sure I don’t have that fabled bit of broccoli stuck in my teeth. I cannot escape the fact I see my face when I use a public restroom, or that I catch my reflection in a window or in my computer screen. I check to make sure that my hair is still parted neatly, or if I’m wearing my glasses, that they aren’t askance – it’s almost impossible not to. But the place I see my face most is in my room, and I have dealt with that.

I usually wear what clothes I please, and comfortable clothes, at that. But over the past few days, I have felt even more comfortable because I was not seeing what I would look like and how other people would see me. It’s a strange feeling to try to convey. I felt at peace with myself, like there was harmony between my inner mind and my outer body. I wish I could say that there was no difference between my mind and body, that I could not distinguish one from the other. The barrier still stands, but the lines have been blurred a little. I like not looking at myself but rather being myself.