Over the weekend, Honey Bunny and I went to a big, big family dinner at his uncle's house. The reason for this particular fete? His cousin from Australia - I'll call him Harry - was in the US for a medical conference last week and decided to pass through San Francisco to see family on his way back.
Harry is a Bariatric surgeon. Yeah. Awkward. I'm far from being the only overweight relative in the bunch, but I don't think anyone else could pass for "obese".
There are lots of doctors and surgeons in HB's family, and the sidebars at family dinners are often about medical topics. Katie will ask why her cholestorol medication makes her face flush, Norman will show how he twisted his knee last night at his baseball game, and Honey Bunny will ask for advice on how to lower his uric acid level. You get the picture.
And, this is not the first time Harry has been in the US for conferences and such. One time he was in the Bay Area for two weeks doing a mini-internship under a supposedly famous Bariatric surgeon. I endured several family and two-on-one dinners with Harry during that time. And, I do mean "endure" as I always felt painfully self-conscious about what I was eating and how much, and what was being discussed at the dinner table and in what depth.
So what made this time different than any other? Firstly, I decided not to bother myself with the usual self-conscious thought routine. All previous occasions when I've spent time with Harry, it was met with hand-wringing for days prior, and a pep talk about how, if the subject of his work came up, I would hammer home my opinions about weight, obesity, and surgery as a means to accomplish weight loss. In other words I spent the days leading up to, and the actual visit, in defensive mode. I have to add that the subject of his work never came up, and so Harry doesn't know jack about my stance on living a fat life.
In fact... Harry doesn't know jack about me in general! I'm not going to out HB's family background, but I will say they come from "the old world". Unfortunately, I have to report that, in this family at least, women are not exactly included in conversations about anything other than cooking and god (and medical advice, as appropriate and necessary). Harry is no exception, and in fact I would say he's one of the worst. He'll talk the ears off any male family member, but where women are concerned there is a polite handshake and "How are you these days?" and that's about it. Point #2: Zaftig Chick needs to lay off the paranoia/narcissism and realize that the distance isn't necessarily about her!
I felt ready and steady to meet Harry this time around, but it was still awkward in the moment. I asked him what brought him to the states this time, and he very, very awkwardly told me he attended an obesity conference in Dallas, where he learned more about a specific procedure that he likes to perform. Ick. Thankfully the conversation veered quickly to Texas and how hot it is there, and he and HB were off and running. I politely excused myself to get a glass of water. Sometimes awkward conversations about awkward topics with awkward people happen in life, and sometimes you have to endure them. But, sometimes you don't. Harry is family and so I will always find a way to be genuinely polite to him, but there's no reason I should stand there and endure anything more than the routine niceties.
This is something I'm learning in general in life right now. Sometimes you have to take it, and sometimes you don't. And if you don't, then why waste your time with it? I don't mean that in a bitchy way. A waste of time can be as simple as playing one too many games of Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, or as complicated as putting effort into a fruitless relationship.
Also, I don't think that the distasteful actions of a person constitutes a reason to hate them. Harry has chosen a profession which is meaningful to him in a way that I don't get, and maybe someday I'll ask him for clarification on that. I've spent a lot of time in life lumping folks into two categories: good or bad. Thankfully I can see a lot of shades of grey now. Afterall, Harry is a terrific backgammon player (beats me and everyone else in the room, every single time) who seems to have a very genuine affinity for Honey Bunny. He has strengths, just like everyone else. He has deficits, just like everyone else. And I'm allowed to have an opinion about him, but I don't know that it need end in stern judgement.
30 June 2009
05 June 2009
The mental tug-o-war
Last night I got my hair done by my lovely hairdresser Nancy. The last time I saw her, in March, she died my hair a rich reddish brown overall and then dyed over my old blond highlights with hot pink. I was in the mood to do something wild. It didn't seem that wild, though, since my highlights had grown out to the point where my roots were a good 2" or more. In other words, the hot pink had a more peek-a-boo effect.
Last night I was hell-bent on having highlights that went right up to my scalp, as I think it makes my hair and head have more dimension, and therefore look bigger. This has less to do with wanting Texas Hair (which I do love sometimes), and has much more to do with balancing body size. See - my mom, when I was about 15 years old, told me my head looked too small for my body when I wore my hair close to my head. Moms say the darnedest things sometimes!
(Thank goodness for my friend Hyla, who once quelled a crying jag I had about above-referenced Mom comment and what I perceived was very flat hair at the time. She said, "If anything I have always thought your head is freakishly BIG for your body!" My response? "Really?? Thank god!")
At any rate, Nancy bleached out pieces of hair for the highlights while doing my overall burgundy/brown/red color, and then after she washed that all out, she put the hot pink all over my head rather than isolating the bleached out pieces. It was at that point that I started having my usual mental tug-o-war.
On the tip of my brain and tongue was, "Uhhhh... are you sure you wanna do that?" The other, more judgemental, voice in my head butted in and said, "She's a great hairdresser with 15 years experience, I think she knows what she's doing better than YOU do." As usual, the latter voice won and I didn't say a peep. Unfortunately, this is usually what happens because that judgemental voice... it happens to be loud and pushy. You might even want to call it an asshole sometimes.
When she was washing the dye out of my hair, she kept saying, "Wow, your hair really grabbed the pink!" I kept thinking, AWESOME. Yet, imagine my face when she put me in front of the mirror, took the towel off, and a giant ray of sun happened to be beating down on my head. The highlights were FLAMIN' hot pink, while the rest of it was just slightly muted hot pink. The top of my head looked like it was on pink fire. The whole entire thing was just too pink pink pink. There was no reddish brown anything tempering it. I took a deep breath, and, here we go again. Natural Voice says, "Yeah, that's not what you signed up for." Asshole Voice goes, "Well, it's too late now. You're just gonna have to live with it!"
Thankfully, Nancy kept fussing over the fact that it turned out much differently than she expected and said, "Let me cut it and dry it a bit, and if it's still too bright, we'll fix it." One lovely, soft cut and blow-out later, I stare into the mirror and sigh. "Nancy," I said, "I loves me some pink and I appreciate your hard work but I need something less out-there. I'm sorry." I'm a risk-taking girl when it comes to beauty and my work place cuts us a wide berth to express ourselves, but I don't want to look like a goth teenager (no offense to the population, especially since I used to be one of them). Finally, score 1 for Natural Voice!
She totally fixed it and it's lovely now. By normal person standards, it's still pink and it's still out-there, but to me it looks really cool. It's like that goth teenager in me finally gets to have the hair she always wanted but could never seem to actually attain: pretty with an edge. Yahoo! And, Phew!, Nancy made copious notes in my file to not bleach out hair if doing hot pink highlights again, and not put hot pink over my entire hair.
My friend Krista, who is in a 12-step program, counseled me during a personal crisis a few weeks ago. At one point she asked me how many voices were in my head. I just couldn't imagine how to answer that question. If I said I had voices in my head, I felt I might as well admit that I'm nuts (which I am, everyone is, but you know). And, moreso, I didn't realize that the internal monologue counts as a voice, or many voices, as the case may be.
As I tip-toed around the question, she said, "Well, I'll tell you that when I started the program, I had about 50. Now I've honed that down to five key voices that help inform my world, for better or for worse." She explained them all and the purpose that each serves. It was a very interesting concept to me, so I've been trying to listen to my internal monologue carefully and figure out who is who, and what is what.
I have a lot of thoughts about where Asshole comes from. Could s/he be the amalgam of the really hardcore naysayers throughout my history? And what about Natural? Surely she is the voice that my therapist has been nurturing and trying to bring forward for years. I'm sure there are more voices in there to be identified, but only time will tell.
Last night I was hell-bent on having highlights that went right up to my scalp, as I think it makes my hair and head have more dimension, and therefore look bigger. This has less to do with wanting Texas Hair (which I do love sometimes), and has much more to do with balancing body size. See - my mom, when I was about 15 years old, told me my head looked too small for my body when I wore my hair close to my head. Moms say the darnedest things sometimes!
(Thank goodness for my friend Hyla, who once quelled a crying jag I had about above-referenced Mom comment and what I perceived was very flat hair at the time. She said, "If anything I have always thought your head is freakishly BIG for your body!" My response? "Really?? Thank god!")
At any rate, Nancy bleached out pieces of hair for the highlights while doing my overall burgundy/brown/red color, and then after she washed that all out, she put the hot pink all over my head rather than isolating the bleached out pieces. It was at that point that I started having my usual mental tug-o-war.
On the tip of my brain and tongue was, "Uhhhh... are you sure you wanna do that?" The other, more judgemental, voice in my head butted in and said, "She's a great hairdresser with 15 years experience, I think she knows what she's doing better than YOU do." As usual, the latter voice won and I didn't say a peep. Unfortunately, this is usually what happens because that judgemental voice... it happens to be loud and pushy. You might even want to call it an asshole sometimes.
When she was washing the dye out of my hair, she kept saying, "Wow, your hair really grabbed the pink!" I kept thinking, AWESOME. Yet, imagine my face when she put me in front of the mirror, took the towel off, and a giant ray of sun happened to be beating down on my head. The highlights were FLAMIN' hot pink, while the rest of it was just slightly muted hot pink. The top of my head looked like it was on pink fire. The whole entire thing was just too pink pink pink. There was no reddish brown anything tempering it. I took a deep breath, and, here we go again. Natural Voice says, "Yeah, that's not what you signed up for." Asshole Voice goes, "Well, it's too late now. You're just gonna have to live with it!"
Thankfully, Nancy kept fussing over the fact that it turned out much differently than she expected and said, "Let me cut it and dry it a bit, and if it's still too bright, we'll fix it." One lovely, soft cut and blow-out later, I stare into the mirror and sigh. "Nancy," I said, "I loves me some pink and I appreciate your hard work but I need something less out-there. I'm sorry." I'm a risk-taking girl when it comes to beauty and my work place cuts us a wide berth to express ourselves, but I don't want to look like a goth teenager (no offense to the population, especially since I used to be one of them). Finally, score 1 for Natural Voice!
She totally fixed it and it's lovely now. By normal person standards, it's still pink and it's still out-there, but to me it looks really cool. It's like that goth teenager in me finally gets to have the hair she always wanted but could never seem to actually attain: pretty with an edge. Yahoo! And, Phew!, Nancy made copious notes in my file to not bleach out hair if doing hot pink highlights again, and not put hot pink over my entire hair.
My friend Krista, who is in a 12-step program, counseled me during a personal crisis a few weeks ago. At one point she asked me how many voices were in my head. I just couldn't imagine how to answer that question. If I said I had voices in my head, I felt I might as well admit that I'm nuts (which I am, everyone is, but you know). And, moreso, I didn't realize that the internal monologue counts as a voice, or many voices, as the case may be.
As I tip-toed around the question, she said, "Well, I'll tell you that when I started the program, I had about 50. Now I've honed that down to five key voices that help inform my world, for better or for worse." She explained them all and the purpose that each serves. It was a very interesting concept to me, so I've been trying to listen to my internal monologue carefully and figure out who is who, and what is what.
I have a lot of thoughts about where Asshole comes from. Could s/he be the amalgam of the really hardcore naysayers throughout my history? And what about Natural? Surely she is the voice that my therapist has been nurturing and trying to bring forward for years. I'm sure there are more voices in there to be identified, but only time will tell.
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