Get your ow
n diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

7:23 p.m. - 2001-11-09
Women
I have this thing with women.

I don't kid myself and say that I am any less stereotyped because I am in the minority. I have seen too much of that in my life and it always leaves me quietly amazed, or, more recently, slightly bemused. The instances I am referring to have been primarily provoked because the person in question somehow felt as if they were railing against the mainstream, thereby making them unique and worthy of notice (or merit) as an individual. That, I realized as I grew older, is a neatly packaged stereotype in and of itself: the 'we real cool' rebellious angst. And here I am, another example of a sub-stereotype: I am the woman that other women slant their eyes at. Jessica Lange in 'Blue Skies'; Claire Danes in 'Brokedown Palace'. Canvas a select group of women, and you will find them nodding with tight- lipped smiles. I could say that the aforementioned group is a stereotype of their own, but then I would be revealing my obsession with categorization. No need to do that quite yet, I think.

When I was twelve, my body decided to get a jump-start on my mind. It was game time as far as puberty was concerned, and perhaps the physical aspect of things was tired of killing time in the stands. Whatever the reason, it soon became clear to everyone but myself that I was headed towards Brickhouse status, with a bit of hourglass thrown in for good measure. This alarmed my mother more than anyone else, perhaps because I had been so much like her up to this point that such developments were completely unforeseen. My mother is a gamine, beautiful woman. Streamlined, delicate, and birdlike; Audrey Hepburn with nicer hips. Until twelve, I showed promise of footsteps following, spindly and coltish. Then, enter some heretofore unknown (or acknowledged) genetic strain, and Audrey is out; Marilyn is in. Like I said, game time.

Not that I was aware of any of this, of course. I remember being pleased that the fashionable skirts at the time (tight minis with a larger inseam around the hip area) fit me like a glove. MC Hammer was passe; Paula Abdul was reaching her zenith, and Bel Biv Divoe was singing 'Do Me, Baby' at all of the dimly lit middle school basement parties.

My best friend at the time began teaching me things like how to entice the boy of choice by swiftly fanning one's legs out when crossing them. When I look back now, the dichotomy is screamingly apparent: basically, this maneuver involved a split second of spread eagle availability before returning to the home base of cross legged chasteness. Come hither, boys: The Humpty Dance isn't just a wax on, wax off movement on the dance floor. My friend knew this, but I was still the simpleton. To me, the Humpty Dance was simply that: a way to brush palms with some boy I had been eyeing in math class for a half a year. And leg fanning was a pretty movement; reminiscent of a move I had been practicing in dance class every Saturday morning. I got it down perfectly, as if seduction could be counted off in sets of eight. Tala was the hit of parties, swinging her legs with a mischievous twinkle in her eye; disappearing from the soggy punch table several times a night with the boy toy of her choice. I watched all this with pre-teen awe, chickening out any time I had the fleeting opportunity to implement fanning maneuvers or the equally effective 'opportune' lip gloss application. Basically, I felt stupid. And so, I followed the natural course of comfort. I befriended the opposition. I did what most girls that considered themselves tomboys or ugly (or both) did: I was the boyish confidant with burgeoning boobs.

When I stop to consider, it seems as if Tala would have been the one to become the homewrecker; whore in the Madonna sense of the equation. I was headed towards the resigned female friend role, the comedic sidekick, Rosie O'Donnell with a Scarlett O'Hara waist measurement. And, in fact, we were steadfast in maintaining our respective stereotypes throughout most of high school. Tala dated every boy I ever liked. I even picked a god awful ugly one at the end of sophomore year, figuring that she wouldn't stoop that low. Or, I suppose I should say hoping that she wouldn't, because even at that age, I understood that female friendships were inherently fraught with more complexities and peril then their male counterparts. Tala may not have been attracted to him in the least; in fact, I was almost completely sure that that was the case. But it wasn't about him. It was about us. I never harbored her any ill will. I still don't. In fact, I considered it to be the natural course of things. I was painfully shy, she was painfully precise in terms of her huntress abilities. Evolution, and all that. That isn't to say I wasn't learning.

Junior year, something happened. A hot tub party, to be exact. I had purchased a lime green bikini, and looking back now, I was a bona-fide Lolita. Honestly, it is a good thing I didn't realize it at the time. There was a boy; Nate, an Admiral's son. Many of my close friends throughout high school were children of the officers on Bolling Airforce (and Navy) base. The hot tub party was on base, and Nate was going to be there. I told Tala I liked him, and wasn't sure what to do about it. She said, in a way that was beginning to seem worn after years of use, 'May the best woman win'. And maybe it was the swimming attire. Or the fact that the tiki lights lit my face mysteriously every time I lit a cigarette off them. Or maybe it was the fully dilated moon. But whatever the case, he took me back behind the neighbor's tin shed, and sat me down on the grass under a uniform lamppost. Then, he kissed me. I remember thinking, 'Finally. I am in the ballgame'.

And so it begins. Tala eased up considerably after that. There were a few halfhearted attempts on her part, but I went for the gold straight out- and no one likes getting stuck with silver repeatedly. So we left it at that, and have never really discussed it. By the beginning of senior year, she had a boyfriend; a college boy at UVA who took us to Dave Matthews concerts back when he was just another frat band playing dive bars in Charlottesville. It got serious, and she got distant. He was the one who told me that she had lost her virginity to him. We were at Pizza Hut, and I remember choking on a mouthful of cheese, mushrooms, and watered down root beer. Just the day before, she had actively lied to me in regards to that very topic.

By senior year, I was the networker, the crazy wild child who wore my grandmother's kimono cocktail dress (circa 1964) to school one (non-uniform) day, and a pair of fishnets, black wool miniskirt, and crop tube top the next. The boys huddled in packs, tossing insults my way with their eyes and the occasional out-loud observation. Later, alone in the hallway by happenstance or premeditation, they fumbled with phrases like, 'Wanna go see a movie sometime?' I began to lose all ability to tell a face-saving maneuver from the truth.

Enter Arcie. Beautiful, flighty, with a voice that betrayed ditzyness and a closet full of sparkly hippie clothes to match. Think Penny Lane with rippling waves of dark hair halfway down her back. Arcie, the master of first impressions; Tala for the big boys. She cut through that layer of bullshit distributed so evenly throughout the school body simply by breathing. You know that girl. The one who 'forgets' to wear underwear to (Catholic) school one crisp and windy fall day. And she is so spacey you are forever pondering that tiny kernel of possibility which tells you that she really could have forgotten to pull open that cedar drawer littered with potpourri and granny handkerchiefs before slipping into her pleated uniform skirt. Knowing her, she sleepily discarded the garment in question in a crumpled cotton pile on the bathroom floor (while enlisting in that good mornin' to ya piss). She wrote masterful bits of poetry on ratty napkins from local bars, and then burned them before we left. She would dance by the fires we lit outside of the Masonic Temple, watching her bond-girl silhouette twisting and distorting on the dull gray bricks. And even though she must have known every man there was staring at her, I don't think she got off on it. Not as much as she got off on watching the movement of those shadows. She once wrote a story about the way my thighs looked sliding in and out of the sides of a sundress my mother's best friend had owned. I took it home with an absurd sense of pride, where my mother read it and promptly warned me to stay away from her. Arcie was it, though, for me. Blame it on my Anais Nin phase; I was hooked. My newest bestest confidant, with a little more thrown in for good measure. I wouldn't call it lusty, or anything like that. It was just the era between slumber parties and fetish ones.

Arcie wasn't Penny Lane. In high school my dear friend Clark (whom she dismissed cavalier style a few days before senior prom) told me that she was sunbeams and lollipops, and I was chocolate and roses. Years later, I asked him to clarify. He said he would do me one better and re-assess. Arcie, he said, was wilted buttercups and cheap iced tea, and I was red wine and olives. Observations about myself aside, he was quite startlingly correct, in both the then and now aspects of the equation. Arcie was the life of the party after we graduated; everyone wanted to be near her, say they knew her. On a crazy night, she was the girl Friday, fit and equal to the task. For my part, I took on the sexual persona of a man. Arcie and I were part of the gentlemen's inner sanctum; the early part of the evening would be a divide and conquer event (them to the frat girls with 'bitch faces', Arc and I to the silly little pretty boys who thought they were coercing us into 'putting out'), and by the end of the night, we had kicked everyone out to relay our adventures as humorous anecdotes or a hard night's work. She and I went through boys at a ratio equal to Jack Daniel's Cooler consumption: one pack per the prospective, at least. Evenings begun to bleed together, with me attempting to scrape her off the floor as dawn seeped in. They were all crazy. The nights, the people, the drinks, the scene. Even me. She was a carnival ride that never had a seatbelt. Turns out I just didn't know when to get off, even after I saw friend after friend catapulting. Everyone strives for that unique and enviable status of the last (wo)man standing.

We were sitting in Clark's room about five years ago, candles wilting into stereo speakers, Led Zeppelin's Cashmere filtering through the smoke-laden room. Just a bunch of early twenty-somethings with nothing better (or worse) to do on a Tuesday night. I lay sprawled on the bed, leaning my ear on Clark's cheek. Arcie slithered around the room, a peach tank top and faded fraying jean shorts whispering with her movements. Shadows danced around the tight confines of the bedroom; even after three years, I was still grudgingly transfixed. I watched her watch herself, and suddenly, Clark's breath spread on my forehead, and he began to speak. 'Look at her', he said softly, hesitantly. 'She is the walking personification of a self involved little twit. She is so wrapped up in herself and her movements. Every night, it's all the same. There is nothing else in the world for her but her. Everything else is just a distraction, for good or bad. I can't believe I ever loved that girl'. And as I looked at her spinning slowly, she became cheap, tawdry. I tried to fight it; tried to believe that it was a noble thing to not care about the opinions of bitter boys and jealous girls. And in theory, that was correct. At least she wasn't calculating. She wasn't manipulating. But something inside me screamed that it was far worse. She lacked the capacity to be either of those horrible qualities because there was nothing else in her existence but the fascination and contemplation of her own thoughts and actions. I thought back on the past few years, all the faded adventures and cheap 7:00 AM 7-11 coffee, and realized that it was only mischance that I never was tossed aside. She couldn't hurt me, I suppose. But that was only because she wasn't even aware that I was there to hurt.

Traversing Clark's rickety hallway on my way out of the bathroom and towards the door much later in the evening/morning, I heard a noise coming from the now dimly blue lit bedroom. I reached for the doorknob, remembering my half-full box of Camels and silver lighter were still inside. The sounds sharpened into syllables- I hesitated and immediately wished I hadn't: 'Do you miss me? Tell me that you do. I don't need candles to see that much. Silence. Then a quiet, defeated response. 'I do. That never matters in the morning, though.' Rustling; I heard Clark's sheets being pulled aside. Funny the things you remember; the sound was loud, almost crackling. I asked him the next day if he starched his sheets. Then, her voice; smooth with a drowsy stoner lilt: 'Does it look light outside to you?' 'Getting there', he whispered. And I heard a wet sound, and soft moaning. End game, boys and girls. I went home.

I am wary of women these days. In a brave new world where gallons of lip service pour thickly over a politically correct society, many people seem to avoid the underbelly factor: People stick to what they know, for as long as they know how. It's a wonder evolution got this far. I was raised with the feminist understanding that a girl could be whatever she wanted, as long as she stays true to herself. But a girl isn't afforded the luxury of an effective blending of sexuality and intelligence, no matter what the politicians say. One may use sexuality to their own ends effectively, or as an assertion of power over something (or someone), thus belying intelligence. Or one may downplay their physical attributes to garner more attention towards their mental ones. But find a woman with a man's frankness and ambition in the sexual arena, who isn't willing to compromise her intelligence or self-respect, (and who isn't consumed to a point with competition from other women) and you will see the lip service flooding in. The New American Woman, the progressives say. Men are at times standoffish, aroused, and annoyed by this new entity, the old guard feminists loathe it, and most women like to play it's part, on occasion. Reserved only for the bedroom or a night out with the girls at a bar, of course. Anything else- and it is overkill. It is threatening.

I don't want to play a part. I want to be me. Is there any way to explain to a feminist that one would hope that society had advanced far enough to accept both tits and wits into the equation (and if it hasn't, it should have)? Is there any way to assure the normal woman that I am not just out to 'snag a man' (and soothe their secret fears that it might just be their man)? Is there any way that the majority of the feminine community will openly embrace a woman like I have described above, a woman who's attributes I strive to embody? Probably not. And so I remain at a distance.

It hurts me. I can read manipulation, but not speak it. I understand when something is being conveyed with a hiss hiding behind a smile, but I can't reciprocate in kind. Betrayal of friendship, to me, isn't what Tala did. It's Arcie. What was between Tala and those acne-ridden boys was really something between us; it was understood. And I could stop the chain of events at any time. Arcie hurt people, twisted them up and tossed them away. Men most notably, but by default (and virtue of closeness of association), myself. Used and broken, most of them. And her oblivious in the wake.

Most of my confidants, close and distant, are men. And, shamefully, (with a few notable exceptions) I don't envision that changing anytime soon.

I have this thing with women, you see.

 

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!