I am currently reading "Look at My Ugly Face" by Sara Halprin. It makes me think back to many things... My mother worrying (more than me) about my appearance. She feared ridicule from my classmates, if I didn't look a certain way, like she experienced due to her overbite. My classmates still picked on what they thought "easy prey," the skinny (read frail), big eyed, quiet/shy girl. Yet I had boyfriend after boyfriend, while my Mother's obsession with how I looked reached manic proportions. I recall her once vigorously brushing out my curls after a mud hair treatment to make my hair, I don't know, less frizzy, less curly? She claimed my hair "was in knots." I think the "knots" where just my curls. The result of her brushing my curly hair was that it frizzed out. She proclaimed the product a failure to make my hair "normal." What was "normal" I couldn't have told you. She made me try hair product after hair product in hopes of a miracle cure to my wild curls. Nothing short of shaving my head will cure them. Along with her obsession with my hair, my mother also became concerned about skin care regime. She would buy skin product after skin product claiming the few pimples I did get as a tween/teen were due to the fact I washed my face with Noxema. One of the products she made me try, burnt my skin so that it was red and blotchy for a few days.

I learnt early on what a hoax/joke the beauty process was. I think somewhere around 15, I rebelled against it all. I found grunge/alternative music that made it appear that it was okay to look like crap if even your a girl. The girls in the Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" video looked perfectly accepting of how they looked. I wore men's clothing, I ditched the make-up, I wore mismatched clothes on purpose (that drove my now ex-boyfriend insane). I made the most of my long frizzy curls in barrettes, braids, splitting my hair into sections and making a bunch of knots on top of my head like Bjork in the 'Big Time Sensuality' video.



I began emulating male artists as much as females. No one scoffed at Eddy Vedder with his unkempt hair - maybe his mother did, but I didn't hear about it. People, for the most part, thought he was cool back in the 90's. My ex-boyfriend wanted to be him, and I kind of did as well. I had reached the point where I didn't want to simply just attract men or women. I wanted them to like me for my beauty and brains. And most importantly, I wanted to be on equal footing with men and boys. I could ask boys out - a concept that nearly drove my female family members insane, while my female friends cheered me on. One would think that my family knew right then, I was never going to grow up to be a stereotypical woman. Yet... it took years for my grandmother to stop telling me about places I could go to meet nice guys. And my mother has finally stopped encouraging me to wear the eye make-up that makes my eyes itch. I suppose itchy eyes are just part of the female ritual I was supposed to be part of... I wanted to be beautiful, there's a part that still does, but sometimes its such a pain in the ass, and not always worth it.