dynamic elf

Putting on makeup recently - even the crazy over-the-top stage makeup I was doing - has made me more aware of my facial features than I usually am. For all that I'm an unapologetically broad strong woman, my face is actually... pretty. I don't think about this very often, but it doesn't take much makeup to make me look in the mirror and say, "Whoa, hey, check it out! My appearance conforms to many classical and contemporary standards of beauty!"

Which makes me a little uncomfortable.

I mean, it's almost as if it's one more area where I've never bothered to live up to my potential, you know? "She could accomplish so much, if only she would apply herself." I feel as if I rarely bother to take my appearance beyond the raw materials. And it's not as if I even have a principled stance against it! I love modifying my appearance, but it seems as if I have a block against a kind of simple daily femininity. Why does shaping my eyebrows feel different from getting a haircut? What am I afraid of losing, in there?

I realized I had a lot of baggage around this when I had the following conversation:

Me: "That's a pretty dress, but please go put on some pants."
N: "Why?"
Me: "Because you can't play on the playground as well in a dress and tights, and I know you love playing on the playground."
N: "I can play in a dress!"

...and I realized: of course she can play in a dress. She sees no conflict between wearing a dress and doing the monkey bars or climbing up the slide. She doesn't care if she gets a hole in her tights. Only *I* see that conflict and want to save her from it. So I've tried to just let her wear a dress any time she wants and vow to buy lots of tights. I will buy a subscription to cute tights if it means she gets to grow up and feel pretty and strong at the same time whenever she wants.

Me, I don't think they're incompatible, but I have difficulty wanting to inhabit them at the same time. Maybe I also fear that if I present as pretty, that I will come off as less interesting or valuable in other ways. Being a disco queen is all well and good, but I could never wear eyeliner to work.

Clearly I don't have a well-formed set of thoughts here, but I am very interested in exploring this territory. How about you? Do you find yourself attracted to people who are conventionally feminine, or distanced/put off? How do you relate to the sort of neat-makeup-and-appearance femininity that is not superglam or freaky (because those, of course, are way easier for me to relate to)?

I'm fantasizing today. Let's say you had NO IDEA what I do for work (which is probably true of most of you), and all you knew was that I wanted a change of career.

What real, achievable thing in the world should I be doing instead? Something that plays to my strengths and allows me to make something, somewhere more awesome just by showing up and being ME at it.

So, the girls recently found my stack of Scott Pilgrim books and were QUITE ENTHUSIASTIC about a grownup reading picture books to herself. Naturally, they wanted in. I read my rapt audience several pages before realizing ... yeah, this is basically about sex and fighting.

My question to you, Internet: what is the most awesome (mostly fun) graphic novel that's okay for kids? Many of my favorites are right out (Preacher, etc), but surely there must be some! I think Bone could be good. What else?

What was the first piece of recorded music you ever owned, and in what format?

Not counting all of my records as a kid, the first thing I bought as a 'grownup' music consumer (age ~12) was a cassette single of Kylie Minogue's "The Locomotion".

Can anyone recommend a good plumber? And, um, also an electrician?

Once upon a time, in a Usenet far far away, I read a thing about "glof, the sprot of knigs". I can't find it on the internet, and I am not too proud to admit that I am haunted by that. Help?

I really want to watch this documentary. It's called "American Tongues", and it catalogues a bunch of different pockets of unusual English dialects around the country. Here are a couple of clips of it that exist on Youtube:

Tangier, VA
Cajun

It looks like I can get it in this (interesting-looking) collection on Amazon for $225, or for $100 less on eBay. spike discovered that American Tongues on its own is rentable for $85.

...but now I'm out of ideas, and I'm not paying $85. Does anyone have a clever way of helping me see this thing? University libraries? The copy you already have sitting on your shelf?

OK, so, WHEN do you listen to music?

I've finally arranged my life to make it SO annoying to drive to work that biking is Obviously The Laziest Choice. This is wonderful for my health and well-being, but I feel a bit adrift, because the car has been my main music-playing device for several years. It turns out that while I love being intensely involved with the music I'm listening to, I am extremely bad at having that kind of music playing while, say, other people are in the room trying to talk to me, or while I have to think. Driving was perfect, but now that I'm not driving -- now what?

Sometimes I will set my phone to play at max volume and stick it, speakers up, into my bra, when I ride. This gives me music on my bike while still letting me listen to the traffic at full fidelity. But I can't always hear the music on busy roads, and... and it never quite works the way I want it to. I don't listen to music while I'm falling asleep. I rarely listen to music when hanging out with people, unless our activity is Listening To Music. I will sometimes put on music while cooking or puttering in the kitchen, but this leads me to put on different types of music, and so I get a lot less focused listening time than I used to.

It's confusing! How can I suddenly like different things just because I don't use the car as much? It's easy(ish) to find time to listen to old standards and things I love to sing along to. Wordless things I can listen to at work while working -- they help me focus, but, well, I don't exactly have a huge store of music that I've accumulated for the purpose of helping me focus.

So, hey you! When do you listen to music? At work? While socializing? When do you listen to NEW music, and how much attention do you give to it?


BTW: My list of things I feel a little adrift if I don't have: Graceland, some Bob Dylan (Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, Nashville Skyline, whatever), and Gorecki's symphony no 3. This is by no means a comprehensive list of stuff I want to have with me, or even the stuff I listen to most often, but if I don't have those three things I get confused somewhere deep in my heart.

While I'm asking this kind of question, does anybody have an iPhone geocaching app they recommend?

What's your favorite everyday pen? I take a lot of notes and want a new pen, and dammit, I want some good ones.