divaintraining’s blog

It happened in Vegas, but it sure as hell didn't stay there.
I hit the wall, splatting.
I, Body Image Girl, the Diva In Training, the one singing the Love Your Body The Way It Is So It Can Become The Body You Want, the celebratrix of  curves, the Mistress of Fight The Power, went to Sin City expecting a good time and some release from my normal worries. Instead, I fell into a black hole. Wait. More like a bright, shiny, loud, ringing, flashing hole with fake tits. Surrounded by strippers, models, and call girls, I was flooded with thoughts comparing my body to theirs, which were willowy, muscular, thin, and stacked.
Yes, I was walking around casinos, frantically trying to quiet the voices that told me I was not good enough because I have not dieted down to a two and I don't have breasts made of silicone. Worse yet, I was lamenting the fact that the  Neanderthalian  heads of drunken , paunchy males did not swivel towards me like they did towards them. And to top it off, my inner psycho reared her messy head and hissed out all sorts of inappropriate commands toward my date. When I wasn't skeptically scanning his compliments towards me for flaws, I was holding him accountable for the tastes and behavior of every man in the casino, and hence; the entire world.
In short, I totally flipped.
I'm not sure why it happened, but it did, and I'm glad. Maybe it was the unfortunate-for-Vegas shift in my hormonal cycle, combined with those five pounds I think I gained and the unmet need for a haircut. Perhaps it was the sheer volume of showgirlesque forms, live, on screens, in photos, on stages, dripping with perfume and jewels and tits and ass. I got really jealous. I got jealous when my date looked at them, even though he insisted it was a lot like watching a shiny  car drive by. I got jealous when the completely dickheadian frat boys I was eavesdropping on, none of whom would ever be allowed near my inner sanctum, ogled these babes. I began to hate them, thereby becoming as guilty of objectifying them as the men I was cussing out in my head. My date reminded me that many girls who look that (which of course he's slept with and I'm sure not enjoyed in the least) are fairly insecure themselves. I resisted his attempts to humanize them by reminding me that they often had sad, lonely lives of gym and stripping and not much food.
Call me a freaking moron, but I think it finally dawned on me for reals that I would probably never be society's ideal. This sounds ludicrous if you've followed my blog, which was based on a master's thesis, laying out nicely my theory that we must find our own ideal body and pursue it. What I didn't realize that I was holding onto in my head was this strange fantasy, held over from long ago, that someday, if I just did the right things, I would look like that.
Um, I don't think I will.
Ever.
Not to say I'm not pretty, or that I am a hideous digression from what a focus group would call cute. Just that I'm never going to look like a model, stripper, porn star, cheerleader, or any Paris Hiltonesque combo of all.
I. Really. Didn't. Know. That. Deep. Down.
Growing up as a chubby kid, I developed a reverse anorexia. I often found ways to kid myself that I looked and was thinner than I actually was. No doubt it was to shield myself from pain. It also proved the "fake it till you make it" maxim. Even though I was a bit chunkier than most of my friends at that age (many have since caught up and surpassed) and chunkier than the ideal, I had a lot of little friends and a lot of little boyfriends, and people told me I was cute and I felt cute and got attention. Until I would get about five pounds over the top of my comfort zone and go into a self-loathing frenzy. Sound familiar? The self-loathing was always played out by comparing myself to girls who looked the way I thought I should, closer to the way models in magazines looked, closer to the way that girls who got all the boys, even the ones who were total dickheads, looked.
Fast forward to me standing in the middle of the Hard Rock Hotel and casino comparing myself to twiggy 20-year old waitresses, bikini-babes by the pool, and the ever-present sluttily dressed cocktail babes. It was if the last 20 years' worth of body-hatred and self-loathing came to satanically culminate in one moment.If it wasn't such a growth-experience, it would have pretty much sucked.
After much harassment, needling, and underhanded manipulation, I got my boyfriend to admit that if I was in a lineup next to some of the Hootersgirlesque chicks walking around, that a panel of average males would pick the other women over me as hotter. He pretty much thought I was going to murder him. I considered it but decided again to punish him by witholding sex forever. He immediately followed that comment with a very reasonable and extremely complimentary explanation of why he has made the free choice to be with me, none of which I'm recalling too well. All I heard was "less hot".
Although logic and reason did not leave me entirely, it cruelly floated above me, totally inaccessible to my hormone-drenched emotions.I could logically understand  that he  wanted to be with me for the total  package that I am, that he indeed regards my curves and looks quite lustfully, and that he was starting to feel alarm at the high standards I secretly set for myself and what that must mean that I thought of him. But I didn't give a shit. I was sunk in that land of not being asked to the prom, of being called chubby by that dumbass in sixth grade. It of course mattered that here was a guy who clearly adored me enough to sit with me and deconstruct this myopia of emotion and history.
So, if that is the case, why did it matter so much that I don't look like a dang stripper? It's partly asthetics, but when I'm not totally out of my gourd (or surrounded by models) I actually feel pretty hot most of the time. So it is not all pure aesthetics, if I'm able to construct and own my own aesthetic in the face of what is socially acceptable as hot. Strippers and models get that head-swiveling male attention. And I was finally able to admit to myself that yes, even though I am  feministically judgmental of it , I want it. More than I knew. That command of male attention gives me power. Gives me attention. Gives me the  illusion that I am loved and adored. Even though if I stopped to think about it logically, it sure doesn't guarantee love. I could probably have just asked one of the strippers to confirm that.
So in confronting that I do not measure up to a model, and that I sort of want to, I confront  my own powerlessness. And what is more important, my own self-responsibility. If I wanted to be a size two, more than anything else, I would be one. If I wanted to look like a model or a stripper all I would need is about ten to fifteen grand and a whole lotta moxie (I figure I need some tits, either some liposuction or some coke, a personal trainer, manicures and pedicures, waxing, hair upkeep, new clothes and shoes, and the ability to resist food). Given my druthers, I'd rather cut that type of maintenance in half or just do a quarter of it and spend the rest on books. So I really had to face the music this trip, first by realizing that although I am trying to help others with body image and self-loathing, I still have quite a bit of my own shadow to step into. Second, I realized that I had been harboring a secret hope that I would end up looking like that by some sort of magical spell, and even was going to use the same methods of body-improvement tools-bellydance and yoga-to make me look closer to the socially acceptable ideal.
I came back from Vegas hung over, but not from alcohol. It was from the poison I've drank that has caused me to beat myself up for not looking a certain way. And since then, I've been slowly detoxing from it. First, a long look in the mirror at What Is. This is my body, my vehicle, it's the only one I've got, it's served me well, and this self-loathing is doing it a great disrespect and threatens to waste the best years of its' life. Next, an honest look at my motivations for exercising, yoga, dancing, and studying body image. I'm still figuring it out, but I've settled back into the same simple truth I keep getting hit over the head with whenever I bother to be centered.
When I exercise, I feel better. I am stronger. I avoid injury and illness. I have more energy. I feel sexier and more confident. I am more flexible. My moods are more even. And yes, I look better too.
Plus:
I do have goals for my body and things that are within my control to change, and I continue to work at them. This is ok. But-
I think I might just have to let go of that secret hope that the Stripper Fairy will come in the middle of the night and turn me into a mudflap girl.
Thank Goddess.

 

We all get depressed. Sometimes it is clinical, requiring medication, unmalleable. Sometimes it is fleeting, more of a mood and condition of the human soul. Although I am a motivated, positive, upbeat person, I get depressed sometimes. Situationally, genetically, hormonally-whatever the cause, it happens. When it hits, I tend to contract the walking variety of depression, the mass-of-men-in-lives-of-quiet-desperation brand. It hits far too coincidentally with my hormonal cycle for my own comfort. I rarely take to bed, just slow to a crawl in terms of pace, and move through the world feeling more sensitive.

I can feel myself walking the line between not being able to get out of it and not wanting to get out of it, and where they intersect at the crossroads of wanting to get out of it. I have a list of coping mechanisms for getting out of it, which you are free to steal, that is, if you want to get out of it.
I can exercise-even a stroll will make me feel better.
I can do something creative.
Call a friend.
Change the scenery.
Read a book.
Watch a movie.
Take deep breaths.
Find some meaning in my suffering and extract the lesson from it.

All these things will move me out. The trick is bringing myself to the shift where I allow myself to take those turns. I can feel the resistance in my body like a slothful web of fog that opiates my psyche and body into an instinctual cocoon. The cocoon  has all sorts of gestative uses if you respect depression, allow yourself to learn its lessons, and move through it. No butterflies without cocoons. Depression can be the call of the deep soul for deeper rest. In this state of deep rest, I truly believe it is possible to have major breakthroughs that can be life-changing when the depression subsides and the soul is called once again to action.

Yet in terms of following through with one's goals for life, including, shall we say, exercise and healthy eating programs, well, depression is downright problematic. With its focus on sloth and it's insistence on sugar, salt and starch, depression is not a friend of disciplined routine. Neither, for that matter, is the active part of a menstrual cycle. For me, (and.....for you?)this creates a split in my consciousness and sets up a battle between honoring my creative-hibernating-bear-goddess part of myself and my inner diva warrior that's out to kick ass and conquer the world.

If I completely abandon myself to the shadowy seduction of the depressive cocoon, I come out of it chubbier, grumpier, cracked-out from the carbs, and mad at myself. And if I force myself to be peppy right away without a bit of a slothful fog transition, I tend to make some other part of myself angry, making depression worse the next time it hits.

So I do all sorts of tricks, which you're free to borrow, should you make the choice to be so inclined.
I may allow myself one day of doing relatively nothing, and accomplish just a few easy-to-tackle things during that time period to quiet the negative voices and to give myself the self-esteem boost that comes from simple accomplishments.

I allow myself to table worries and pondering over major decisions or upsets for a day or a few hours when I am feeling down.

I curtail emails that I send.

I avoid dealing with people that are draining and difficult and strategize this when it's more difficult (like being out of the office when the boss is in)

I ask for help clearly and directly from someone who is physically, mentally and emotionally available and suitable to give it. I spell out what I need from them "I need to vent and for you to not try to give me advice or cheer me up." or, "I need some advice." "I need a pep talk." I avoid beating dead horses and asking people who have chronically disappointed me to cheer me up.

I analyze my mood in a saucy, irreverant weblog format for the world to cherish.

I invite each situation to present me with its unique humor, no matter how dark. In fact, if depression has taken hold, the darker the better. Dark humor has been known to turn depression into glee in willing lab rats.

I schedule easy workouts or more creative and expressive dancy workouts during my period or when I'm feeling a bit down and unmotivated. I set myself up to succeed as much as possible.

If nothing else, I will drag my ass outside for one half-hour walk.

Being a parent, I've observed, is filled with activities that one does not particularly want to do. Changing a diaper out of love does not equal changing a diaper for the love of it. The activity serves as a model to the children, who are also being asked to do any number of things not in their choosing, from wearing pinch-y Mary Janes to sitting still in a desk inside for six hours a day.

It builds character to change diapers; and school, although mentally challenged in the United States, serves to grow the soul even as it constricts it a little. Doing things when we do not feel like it allows us to extend beyond the gratification of immediate pleasure into a territory where we see the fruits of daily, consistent action.

In the struggle to build a better body, a better mind, a better life, it is daily and consistent action that wins over bursts of hotheaded activity in the end. Just ask anyone who has lost a lot of weight and kept it off. Ask them if they always feel like exercising. The answer is no. They just do. When I realized I didn't have to feel like exercising, and that it was ok just to force myself to do a simple half hour workout, like a parent who makes a child eat just five lima beans, I felt liberated.

Freud, while now out of favor for his cocaine addiction, inaccesibility, and ill treatment of the clitoris, had some valuable theories. One is his primitive but effective model of the human psyche as divided into Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id is the primitive part of us, the one that is concerned most with gratifying desires and avoiding pain, the lazy childlike part that wants to eat bon bons in bed instead of working for something. The Ego, the conscious part, the part that identifies as the entire self, the part that is scorned and maligned by many a new-ager, is actually responsible for keeping our psyche intact and relatively delusion-free. However, the Ego can be quite hard on us, full of pride and hotheaded, and is the one that convinces us that even though today we are a chain-smoker with a pint-of-ice-cream-a-day habit that tomorrow we will surely utilize that expensive gym membership we signed up for and eat only the cabbages rotting in our veggie drawer. The Superego is the internalized parental part of us, the part that serves as social control, the part that fears reprimand and ostracism and compels us to behave in socially acceptable ways. Although many see this model as hopelessly out-of-date, I invoke it in its usefulness to demonstrate the point that we all could stand to make friends with our Superego and get it to work for us.

"Why must I exercise? I don't feel like it"

Because you made a promise to yourself and must honor your word.

"I'm looking good, so I deserve to skip a workout and pig out."

That does not resonate with your long-term goals.

"I feel depressed and can't make myself move."

Then why were you just moving towards the refrigerator? Trust me, you need exercise all the more when you are depressed and you will feel better when it's done.

"How do you know that?"

Trust me.

Most often the best way to parent your inner child is not to spoil her but to give her a job and some responsibility, and the tools to succeed. I will suggest some of mine. When I absolutely feel that I cannot work out (usually the reason is some variation on the theme of bummed outness) I force myself to go on a half-hour brisk walk. I don't have to try to work out, the goal is to circulate air and blood in my body and to be outside. This usually changes my perspective and I have been known to break into a run or to do a short weight or ab workout when I returned.

Another trick I employ is to "do it half-assed". If I don't feel like doing my planned workout, I give myself permission to do it half-assedly instead of "going for it two hundred percent." This usually results in a half-assed start that goes into a medium-strength finish.

The final trick I'm afraid is the result of some inner-child parenting I've already done and if you haven't experenced it, well, then you're going to have to trust me. It is that I've managed to drag my ass to the mat or to the weights or to the track or to the gym just about every day for the last several months, and I'm beginning to see some results. I don't want to monkey with or undo those results, and when I am tempted to do so, I identify it as self-sabotage and make a different decision. Because I've been consistent in the past, I trust myself more, and I don't want to let myself down since I've been doing so good. After all, I'm proud of me. Why stop? Not only that, but because of the physical results I am beginning to notice, I'm more able to endure the workouts I'm subjecting myself to, and they are easier. I have more leg muscles and energy to climb the hill, my butt is strong enough to go low into a squat, and I can now run more easily because my cardio strength is up. Because the Id can play evil tricks, I find myself thinking, "well because I look better now I don't have to exercise as much" or "where was this butt strength when I needed it for my fat ass a few monthys ago." You may notice those statements make little to no sense when you see them written. But when uttered secretly in the mind, they seem like  perfectly logical excuses to slack.

Unfortunately the American Psyche is quite Id-driven. We all want things we don't have to work for, and this is an unoriginal observation. Yet I don't think we've realize how dangerous this mindset is to our midsections and motivation. While I value the seeking and fulfillment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain as much as the next girl, I realize that perhaps the annoyingly parental Superego and it's bossy demands to exercise and eat well have a point, just as my mother had a point that it was much easier to find things with a clean room as she was forcing me to clean it.

After all, it's good for you.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?

Because I said so.

Sometimes I walk the streets of Los Angeles (not the most popular or trendy activity) and marvel at the Divary around me. Briskly walking ladies with clicking heels, good posture, lovely skin, cascades of hair, and fabulous sunglasses. Of this there are the high class babe, midrange babe, downright ho, and transgender varieties: Divas all. It's in the walk.

These bitches know how to take care of themselves. The hair, the nails, the skin, screams "self care". Some do it to land a part; others, a rich man, and others are just natural queens. Sometimes I walk among them, and sometimes I stand in my hoodie and marvel, feeling rather awkward and clunky and oafish. And I think maybe I should go home and put on a pair of heels. I love to wear heels.

Until my feet hurt.

I'm not sure I've wrapped my head around being a Diva, demanding to be able to take all the time I need to put myself together, because that's what I do. Sometimes the hoodie is easier, and I slip through the streets of the city unnoticed. Should I be swishing along in heels and a wrap dress, I'd walk slower, and I'd have at least ten smarmy dudes roll by with that annoying almost-too-soft-to-be-a-real-honk-honk.

So wearing shoes I can't run in, in situations where I should at least high tail, doesn't seem like self-care. At other times, heels are self-care, those times I've submitted to being a princess and making the driver drive around to find a closer parking space because I'm in heels.

Is self care wearing Birkenstocks? It can be, if that's what you want. If that makes you feel divine, what with your comfortable, spreading, earth momma feet. Is it heels, because they make your calves look delicious? Is it a manicure, or is it saving the money from the manicure? Is it a night on the town or hitting the hay early.

Well, logic tells us that we get to decide, and self-care is whatever registers as such. It's just tricky to navigate with all the mixed messages we get about self care. Like the right hand ring. Diamond companies sell the idea of the right hand ring to women (probably because sales have dropped) as a message of empowerment, a woman who is not owned, the left hand is his, the right; hers and all that crap. But is it really self care to support the diamond industry if the thought of it bothers you? If the cost of it sets you back?

It would be easier if someone set up a plan, and I guess that is the appeal of spas, but the trick to self care is that you decide. And for that, you have to stay conscious. Bastard, that consciousness, what with feeling all that pain and discomfort and anxiety and working through your problems and navigating boundaries and shit. What a bitch.

Lately, my favorite methods of self care have been doing dishes in a more timely manner, being more focused with a budget, managing my time, preparing things ahead of time, and having clean underwear. Tomorrow it might be sex in public. It could be spending six hours on the phone or turning it off for six hours. It could be buying an Ipod or deciding against it.

Regardless of the form, the intention of self care is the most important. And for most of us, it starts with a comfort of

taking up more goddamned space
apologizing less
not letting other people, corporations, and psychological complexes own us.
and saying, "I'm totally worth this."
"Dammit"

With this review I'd like to intentionally view the film not through a film critic lens so much as the Diva Lens, and look at it as a bit of personal mythology along my Diva path.

The film was, first and foremost, an Orientalist fantasy of a Westerner, almost like the white man's view of what a young Japanese girl wants. I willingly went along with it, as well as the little "someday my prince will come" nostalgia that ambushes me out of the fucking blue in those awful diamond commercials-they piss me off especially because they sucker me in. Anyway, whatever we may think about the idea of Prince Charming and how he manifests as the Chairman in the story, looking out for her from when she was a girl, buying her her first juicy sweet cherry ice; we can perhaps agree that the idea is alluring.

And the idea of allure is alluring, and the crash course Geisha training that the main character goes through is magical in its training of seduction. Her teacher tells her she is ready when she can stop a man in his tracks. She steps into the street and looks at a boy and smiles, sending him crashing into a cart full of chickens and causing a huge hullaballo in the street.

That is charisma. It is an inner quality that is added to your looks and infects your manner. It is being cute when you look at the person, but knowing when to look, knowing the timing, or perhaps knowing this unconsciously as you go about your business.

The Geisha of the film made the distinction between Geisha and prostitutes in that Geishas had serious talents-they were well versed in the arts, hopefully clever, could dance and play instruments. They had mad skills, and were valued companions for it as well as their beauty. One of the characters called being a Geisha a moving work of art. I am captivated by this idea, with the idea of being a moving work of art. It gives me more breathing room, this metaphor. Being beautiful can be difficult, and it is easier to frump out rather than take the responsibility for our beauty sometimes. By allowing yourself and your beauty to be part of a whole and not the focus of your delightfulness and wonderfulness makes having your beauty somehow more tenable. By having mad skills, talents, opinions, projects, outside of being ornamental or being attractive to a mate makes our beauty, our power, and our sexuality more tenable.

The last wave of feminism has taught women how we have been objectified, and the point we need to go to in order to heal that, beyond just becoming conscious of objectification, is to subjectify ourselves. Become the authors of our own book of dreams, the captains of our ship, the doer of deeds, the dreamer of dreams, the lover of loves and of life and of risks and courage.

Charisma belongs to those who take that agency of themselves. How can a person gripped by their own creative passions not be compelling? Not be beautiful? It is more beautiful than that which all of the cosmetics and surgery and costumery and flim-flammery in the world could produce or bring about.

And actually, that character did have remarkable agency for a female character in a Hollywood movie. She tried to run away, she willed herself into being a Geisha, she learned it in two months when it took others several years, she escaped the war, and she managed to make it known to the Chairman that he loved her within the confines of their strict social rules of communicating (not to mention his facially maimed war-buddy/best friend was into her). She kicked ass. And that is compelling, and that is charismatic.
Just for the subversive and delicious study of seduction and allure and magic and costume and the hard work it takes to be beautiful and divine at times, see this film. It is also lush and gorgeous, and a sumptuous feast.

I live in Hollywood. Not the metaphorical Hollywood. The geographical. I walk across walk-of-fame stars on the way to the Farmer's Market. The Capitol Records building is right by my freeway exit. Hollywood and Vine is a two-minute walk from my apartment.

I'm not an actor, a director, a screenwriter, or producer. I have little to no aspirations to be in the film business or entertainment industry. I'm just a sassy diva who writes and works in mental health.

I'm leaving Hollywood in a month.
But why was I here?
(This is where we skip over the story about the girl who wanted to convince her boyfriend to move to California because she grew up there but tried to appeal to his vanity and desire to make movies and convinced him to move to LA, because she knew he wouldn't want to move where she wanted to go.)

I was drawn to Hollywood for both its metaphorical and geographical possibilities. Right in the middle of Los Angeles, the weird vortex that is Hollywood captivated me, and held me tight in it's weird, hip, oily grip. Everyone walking around is dressed in a very put-together but slightly cartoonish way. It's often difficult to tell the hipsters from the homeless. When I lived on Cahuenga across from a facility that housed mentally ill folks, there was an odd cadre of mentally ill and raggedy celebrity look-alikes, such as Crazy Snoop, Crazy Fergie, and Crazy Willie Nelson. Crack addicts and studio execs rub elbows at my local Starbucks on Gower. Everywhere an odd sort of glamour is in the air. People are concerned with image, but in this passionately holistic way. I was fascinated.

And everywhere there are beautiful girls. Of all races and ages. And so many of them very thin. I got to firsthand and from the inside out experience a distorted body image. It's as if my brain, captivated by the topics of female self esteem, sexuality, body image, and eating disorders, had to experience Hollywood both metaphorically and geographically. Lots of folks, when they are embarking on a health kick, get dismayed when they go to the gym and they feel like everyone there looks like an actress or a model. Well, I went to the gym where there were actresses and models-I recognized them from national print and television advertisements, popular television shows, and movies. It's as if I had to have that physical experience of being in a yoga class with the gorgeous, skinny blond from the Southern Comfort commercial, and help her get into a handstand in order to put things right in my own head.

Yes, she is gorgeous. But I'm not half bad either. And I have a lot of other cool shit going for me as well. And I 'm sure she does too.
Yes, she is thin. But she still looks like she has anxieties and insecurities.
She was a nice person and a pleasant person for the yoga partner exercise, and helped me with my own handstand just fine.

Having this experience pushed me further along the path of self-acceptance, the absurd locic of the direct comparison of me to this model seemed to help me stumble upon the fact that it is sort of boring to compare myself to models. She and I probably got ogled by the same crackhead on the way to the gym, so what does it matter anyway?

But it's not so easy for others to be so blase about the comparisons, I've noticed, and I have my own days where the insecurity and negative body image comes to grip at me in the most inconvenient and exposing moments. Where I am gripped in the Hollywood Narcissism Complex instead of observing it. It would be hypocritical of me to say I was just an observer. I am living this diva training day by day, and it is a war and it is a fight and I think I have been utilizing the sheer crushing effect of Hollywood on the individual to sharpen myself for battle. It's been a crucible, where there are SO MANY teeny tiny women with gorgeous faces, nice manicures, perfect hair, and lots of sexual attention flying at them that I am FORCED to either feel like shit or take my self esteem by force. I , ever the warrior princess, have chosen the latter.

And what I have been met with, for the most part, is acceptance. I should tell you that I'm probably not considered overweight by Midwestern standards, but am by Hollywood standards, if that makes sense to you, and it's my sad feeling that it does. But still, I could definitely improve my body, and I am. This blog is about trying to wrest away my quest for body improvement from crazy and unattainable Hollywood standards of beauty, to make my quest about Diva Training instead. I am shifting the paradigm to one of my own creation.
And speaking of creation, the positive thing that I learned from Hollywood (after all, I did live here for four years, and it isn't all about having a place to fight against) is that you can totally create who you are. That creating and crafting an image is "working with the surface," but that by manipulating the surface you are able to bring to expression something that is welling up from your depths. Hollywood showed me that I can recreate who I am, and that I can change the ways I look in subtle ways to look better and that this is not shallow, that this is self-care. That I have the right to cultivate, refine, and maintain my physical beauty, and that this does not make me wrong. Hollywood, warts and all, has taught me the value of a costume and a mask and a posture. Of being outlandish. Of having and owning your schtick. Of "fake it till you make it". Of acting. And how any good actor is doing something much deeper, and that a mask is a magical object.

Hence, I've become "hotter" here. Some think I'm hot, while others, probably the kind who buy most deeply into "Hollywood" standards might think I was a five or a six out of ten. I'm sure there's a few who would think I was a dog, but I'm not going to give them too much energy. I still gotta get up and pay my bills. But I'm grateful to Hollywood for giving me that, and now that it has, I don't have to be here anymore.

I'm leaving because I don't want to be in the entertainment industry, I feel lonely and isolated here, and it's not where I truly want to end up. So I can be closer to family and friends I grew up with in the Bay Area. And because I realized, after creating my own vision of beauty, I don't have to fight against Hollywood's anymore.

Why do all of my horrible bosses and evil coworkers of yesterday and today have to be women? Why can't reality conform to my women-friendly ideals where we have flexible time, realistic expectations, and work is a comfy place to be, full of righteous sisters efficiently blazing through the workday but always taking time to offer a shoulder to cry on on the way from the bathroom (stocked with free tampons) and the day care?

Why instead must I experience back-stabbing, griping, manipulation, subterfuge, lack of compassion, and just plain rude treatment from the chicks? I have worked with men. I've had plenty of work related problems with male bosses and coworkers. I've been overlooked, talked down to, objectified, and treated differently. As a feminist, a part of me wishes it could say that the men have been the worst and then I could say

SEE? and use that as an example of why patriarchy=bad and sisterhood=good.

But I can't. All the true villains in my career so far have been women. Most of the things men have done to me fall into the category of dumb crap I can ignore or deflect. But whenever I am saying, hm, why is my side bleeding? Oh, it must be this dagger that is stuck there, the villain with the dagger was a villaness. Never have I been so demeaned, talked down to, harassed, talked about behind my back, and straight up fucked over than with women.

Unfortunately, I think that women can be a lot more unprofessional in their conduct. We've talked about the positives of "feminine" values in the workplace, namely, that valuing relationships, allowing feelings into the process, using intuition, are positive values to be introduced into a workplace that may traditionally favor "masculine" values of competition, keeping feelings secret, and heirarchical thinking. But what I don't see getting talked about is that sometimes it's just really inappropriate to bring your feelings into things. However, it's just as inappropriate to pretend you are not feeling something and then channeling those feelings into fucking someone over.

I am deliberately avoiding specific examples of fuckovers in order to avoid unnecessary shop talk, but basically they are maneuvers that either steer the fuckee towards getting in trouble or getting more work. I've had a few bitches do this to me in my day.

I really haven't had as many male bosses, so by no means is this a scientific study, just more an observation on my own experience with predominantly female bosses and now being in the female-dominated field of mental health.
Where I go with it is disappointment.

Where the fuck are my mentors?

Why are my role models so busy being hater bitches instead of shining?

Why  do all my friends just say, They're just jealous? Why are they jealous? Why can't I be myself without worrying about some bitch getting jealous?  If they are jealous  of me, why don't they try to emulate  qualities they like in me instead of trying to step on me?  If they are jealous of my looks, why don't they take care of themselves better? If they are jealous of my brain, why don't they  use theirs more?  If they are jealous of my talent, why don't they nurture and develop their own?

I don't know. But fuck it. I still believe in that fantasy with the sisters and the daycare. I may just have to create it myself.

It would be tempting to say something clever, like: there are two kinds of woman, diva and doormat. Divas are like this, and doormats are like this...
Rather, I'd argue that everyday in our lives we are faced with contexts where we choose between the two governing feminine archetypes to get us through a particular moment in time. Taking into account that being accomodating and generous does not necessarily mean being a doormat, and that there are negative and positive aspects of being a Diva, I'd like to point out that a lot of us women are conditioned and thus accept the role of doormat.

Let's not even get into how a lot of men treat women. For that, you can refer to He's Just Not That Into You, or your female single friends who have a cache of dating horror stories. Let's leave that out for now, leaving along with it the notion that we are teaching these men to treat us this way by accepting the treatment. Let's go somewhere else, which is the crux of the issue, the way we turn ourselves and each other into doormats in the name of being feminine and not wanting to take up space, or be a diva. There is a time to be active and a time to be passive, but sometimes the passivity that we are trained into from the little girl days can be a downright pain in the ass when you are navigating around the Universe, dealing with other human beings.

Without my inner Diva, I would have been eaten alive by now. She reminds me of the importance of posture, and how much more confident I look and feel with a straight back, shoulders back, core engaged, head held high. She reminds me to ask for what I am worth and that if I don't, don't expect to wait around for it to be offered. She reminds me that it is ok to send the food back because it is not what I ordered and furthermore it is gross. She reminds me that the guy who won't go down on me is a bad guy to date. She reminds me it is ok to speak up, command respect, and ask for what I want, even if it causes others to judge and even dislike me. That motherfuckers will find reasons not to like me no matter what I do, and I might as well go out like a Diva. Conversely, my inner Diva knows that me being attentive, loving, thoughtful, and generous to others is part of my awesome goddesshood, and that it is a kindness I can more than spare. It is my inner Diva that tunes me towards the finer things in life and realizes that I can manifest abundance on my own terms, if I dare ask for what I am worth and start to carry myself like I believe I am worth it.

Without my inner Diva I would feel I had no business at all to write these things and claim I have something to teach.

I want to make a post while I am menstrual. So I can go back and read it when I am not menstrual, and I can recapture the feeling. So I will not forget. So that crazy menstrual consciousness does not take over and then sink back into my unconscious. This post is like a photo booth in a wedding chapel in vegas. Ah yes. That's what I was thinking.

This is the first day. I am not bleeding much.

My breasts are sore. My belly feels a bit bloated. I'm tired, I have had a slight headache for the past few days, and my lower back hurts in that one same spot. I crave chocolate. I felt very angry in traffic yesterday. When I had an unpleasant interaction with my boss, the negativity festered in my mind and heart and I woke up gnashing my teeth and imagining myself speechifying. I feel more intuitive with people, and more sensitive to them.

Just now, I thought of something that was sad, and reminded me of a loss. I began to cry, tears and sobs, which lasted for twenty minutes. I could just as easily have become irritable, if there was someone else around. I am glad that there is not. I feel tired and self-protective of my time, my space, my right to create a cave made of movies and books and food. I am unmotivated to exercise. I am aware that it would improve all symptoms.

Sheelanagig

A friend of mine recently blogged in a fit of fury that she was tired of being made fun of by her boss for being chunky (she weighs 165 and is about 5 foot 5). She declared that she was going to take a new diet pills that were originally intended for horses, and dammit, she was going to do it this time. Show him. A flurry of comments saying neigh!  on horse pills, that she is beautiful, that her curves are beautiful, that he is inappropriate, and asshole, don't listen to him, accuse him of sexual harassment, stay the way she was, lose weight the right way, and I know how you feel, I can't seem to get past my plateau of 165 either.

You see, it's this shit that makes losing weight so hard. We have a situation packed with symbolism from currents of self-esteem, feminism, health, psychology, nutrition, professionalism, pharmaceuticals, and cultural images of beauty.

AAAAAAAAgh!!!! This situation, just a representation of so many situations all of us face, must be examined from all sides, angles, like a body. Like a body, we must take the time to go over every inch, allowing the entirety of the whole and the simplicity of the detail to speak to us, so that we may reach this conclusion, and then that one, and then another entirely again.

First of all, I am angry.Why does her boss get to grab her love handles and make chubby jokes? Because he owns an "alternative" business and it's more ok to be "relaxed" like that when it's not a "traditional, white collar" place? In my friend's blog it was apparent that she was venting about other work-related aggravations involving her boss, and that this was fueled and assisted by the chubby jokes thing. It was all wrapped up in a ball of resentment that she prepared to bounce in spite right back at him in form of Revenge of the Horse Pills. She'd show him. I'm thinking that she had the idea that losing all that weight would make her somehow less of a target in his eyes. It is all mixed together. And completely understandable. However, is there a universe where grabbing love handles and calling someone "chubby" is not an insult. Or, at least, it is not the mortal insult that white american women take it as. I once almost came to blows with a girlfriend, a Black girl, who told me my butt looked "fat" and was offended that I was offended, because to her, that was a compliment.

Ok, so there is that. And there is also this. Is there anything innately wrong with my friend at her current weight? She married a man who adores her and they appear to have a good sex life. She is strikingly beautiful, with huge, deerlike brown eyes, nice dark hair, and a mischeivious face. She is curvy, and looks like a goddess sculpture from a different time. There is nothing wrong with her. There is nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with you.

But...does that mean if there is nothing wrong with her that she shouldn't change anything, even if parts of her want to? Are the parts that want to just selling out to the Barbie-patriarcy? If I shed my last ten, fifteen, twenty pounds, am I selling out to my Goddess Sisters who are curvier? Am I making a statement with my highly politicized female body, it's model counterparts used to sell toothpaste and entice gambling?

And this is where I go, all the fucking time. That somehow, wanting to have a trim, toned body is selling out as a feminist because I am conforming to a sexist ideal. That I am willingly putting myself into the path of being objectified. Even still while training the physical body is just about the most subjective process I have ever embarked upon. How do we even know why we are doing anything anymore, for whom? We are so confused as a culture we do not know. Let us say you are a man who only claims to like slim, blond, conservative women. Or so that is the party line. What if my friend, dark-haired, dark-eyed, thick and meaty, and heavily tattooed came to him like a succubus in the night? In a half-sleep of forgotten desires, would he wrap his arms around this Earth Momma and submit to her wicked curves?

And now I step back from my own internal debate, to note in a detached fashion how polarized this is, and shouldn't I be exercising right now?
The process of exercising, which often results in becoming stronger, firmer, and slimmer, feels undeniably good, once I get going.

I don't want to invoke the goddess in my own panic and denial. As in, It's ok to be overweight because we worshipped goddesses who were overweight. I don't think She'd approve of that if she sensed that my motivation was to get out of hard work.

When I look back upon all of these angles, curves, arguments and tacks so far, I notice the striking fact that the only thing that seems to involve my own subjectivity, my own subjecthood, me owning myself, it is when I say that exercising feels good. The rest has to do with ideas of how I should be based on my interpretations of the behaviors and words of others. In the end, I am still as confused as ever about all of the ideological, all of the theoretical stuff.

All I can do is move towards my own center, in terms of healing what is inside of me. I cannot claim to know what is best for anyone, or if it is better to be slim or thick. Some places on earth, like the one where I live, awards more VIP points to those who are slim. Others have more relaxed standards. You will receive more discrimination as a fat person than as a thin one in this culture. I can continue to raise awareness, but I have a bad feeling about making a dent in the practices of mean people.

What I do think I can influence is the way people feel about themselves, assisting them in the movements towards their own centers. To get to the point where we can sit in a room and look at one another and I can ask you to drop all those cultural pretenses, all of the things others say about you and to you, all of the beauty magazines and television shows and doctors messages, and turn your eyes to the mirror. And to decide how you feel about what faces you there.

It is from here that you decide, and you take control.

For me, I'm just fine the way I am. I get laid and people tell me I have a great body. Others hint that I am chunky. It depends where I go. I don't have as much physical strength that I wished I had. I am in ok shape, but not great shape. I am aware of the passage of time, and worry that more fat will get added to my frame, hurting my back, raising my cholesterol, and screwing with a self image that is a bit wonky in the first place from being chubby, getting older, and being single.

Yet I am aware that this "I am fine the way I am" business has been invoked, just like the Goddess (sorry!) as an excuse not to work hard. And this is the place from which I try to take action, doing my best to quiet those other voices.