Awkward moments in beauty

I like to think that I’m artfully bummy.  I know how to be stylish though.  “When she does it, she does it right,” someone said.  I do care what I look like.

But people think that their opinion of their own looks is objective.  I’m pretty, or I’m handsome, they say.  Just a form of self love, maybe?  What else could it be when you say, ‘I’m pretty’ like it’s a statement etched on a library façade?  Some of us believe we’re good-looking, and that it’s a cold fact.  I’ve always said that it all depends on who’s looking at me.  Some days I stand out, other days, I blend in.  It’s more important to focus on having personality.  (Hehe — this is what all aging, average-looking people say.)

I had to have personality, a sense of humor, to have taken some of the comments that I’ve gotten.  At this age when a man stares, I think he just wants to rob me, so I’ll take all the compliments I can get.  But I’ve gotten interesting comments throughout the years.

One coworker said that I looked like Pam Grier.  Pam Grier was fine.  I do not look like no Pam Grier.  I know it’s possible for me to look like a woman who has huge tits when I don’t really have any.  But — really?  This person was on psychedelics, obviously.

I unwittingly jumped in front of a woman in Kentucky Fried Chicken.  I got into a confrontation with the woman and her friend — I was young and stupid.  Outside, once I had gotten waaaaay down the hill, one yelled, “Crackhead!  You ugly bitch!”  I wanted to cry but told her that she was a pussy for telling me this standing a block away.

I do have a penchant for the raggedy.  To top it off I was skinny with platinum hair, a nose ring, and had ordered corn on the cob and biscuits in a Kentucky Fried Chicken – I never ate their chicken.  The bitches thought I was broke.  I could see why calling me an ugly crackhead bitch was a convenient insult.

When I wasn’t blonde, my head was shaved.  “I love a bald headed girl,” this guy said as I was leaving a club.  Yay me!  This was a Latin club where the women have mucho hair, so I might say that it was the highest compliment.

Finally my friend’s mother raved about my mother’s beauty.  “Her skin’s like peaches and cream and her hair is beautiful, and she’s soooo tall,” she said.  “But what about Sandee,” my friend said.  “Oh, she’s all right, but her mother…”  When I want to pretend that I don’t care about my looks, I just remember this.  Ouch!

Naked

It’s a racket!  Go ahead — throw money at these people.  They just want you to buy all their stuff.  A fall wardrobe, winter wardrobe – Oh spring’s here, I need a spring jacket–bah!  You can wear that same jacket in spring as in the fall.  I ain’t no slave to consumerism!  It makes no sense to have all these clothes.  Who cares what’s in fashion.  Clothes from 1982 cover your ass the same way in 2012.

Yeah I got thirty year old clothes.  So I know how holes work in clothes.  In shirts, holes start in the arm-pit area.  In pants it’s the crotch.  Crotch holes were in at one time so people thought I was in style — hehehe.  I wear clothes until they fall off.  I just had to throw away my grey shirt.  The holes in the arm pits were so big that the shoulder part wouldn’t stay on.  But I know how to beat the system.  When I wear shirts with holes I put jackets over them so no one sees.  Sometimes I get compliments on my overall look.  These people don’t know I have holes and that gives me the inner titters, like the time I went on an interview wearing a skirt suit with no drawers on.

On occasion I’ll wear a holey shirt straight out in the open.  I’ve been doing holes for years.  Back in the eighties my boss said they called me ‘corporate militant’ behind my back because I wore runny stockings and holes sometimes.  Mme. Weebles will tell you the panty hose industry’s a racket.  Oh wait a minute – oh wow — years ago another boss bought me all these clothes – I know sexist, inappropriate, yeah, yeah – anyway, I thought it was because he liked me but now as I’m typing this, I’m thinking maybe it was because he felt sorry for me.

When I want to, I know how to dress up.  And, when I do it, I do it right.  I have a Persian lamb coat and leather pants that I paid lots of money for.  But I’m no fool.  I made sure to wear those pants every day since I paid so much for them.

My clothes are like old friends.  They know my body better than a one night stand. While I think dressing up can be an art, generally I think getting dressed is a pain in the ass.  I’d rather be naked.  I’m naked now.  My ass by the way is clean.  It’s important to be clean when you wear your clothes a couple of days in a row. Oh yeah, and I change my drawers everyday — when I wear them – AND — I always floss. It’s not cool to wear your clothes everyday and have plaque on your teeth at the same time.

Free Dental Care at a Cost

I was thrilled to find inexpensive dental care.  At the medical building on the upper west side, the young black woman dentist jogged around busily.  I followed her up and down spiral stairs to tell her my dental woes.  The offices were decorated brown, in a seventies style.  She stopped and asked to see my teeth.  I opened my mouth.  “Oh yeah,” she said nodding and stepping away quickly as if able to determine the extent of my problems.  “We’ll get that fixed right away.  In fact we have a program.”  She said I qualified for a pro bono program.  I was in heaven.  “Let me make a call” she said, picking up the receiver from the multi-lined phone on the large brown reception desk.  The receptionist had left for the day.  Most of the lights in the reception area were turned out.

The woman the dentist called came quickly.  She was a middle-aged short, stocky woman in a brown suit with sensible shoes.  “Hi Sandee — yes you qualify for our program,” she said smiling.  “You’ll fix my teeth for free?”  “Yes indeed,” she said.  I couldn’t believe this was happening.  I felt like I had won a lottery.  She asked also if she could see my teeth.  She moved in and put her hand on my waist near my behind.  She asked me to open my mouth.  She peered inside then stuck her tongue in like a lizard.  “Wha?!”  I pushed back.  “Wait, come, I have to see.  For the program,” she said officiously.  I felt like a prisoner about to be raped.  She grabbed me and stuck her tongue in again.  I pushed her off and wrestled her to the floor before running out of the building.

I stood on an abandoned avenue, shaken and out of breath after running.  Above was bright blue sky and thick white clouds, but everything was gray.  Gray concrete slabs of sidewalk were crumbling and pieces were missing.  I walked to an area with a fence that had a destroyed building behind it.  The area looked like war torn Bosnia, with dilapidated, smoke-colored abandoned buildings and crumbling tenements.

Young men and women came out onto the street from a door on the side of a dilapidated building.  They had hair to their waists.  They were thin like high fashion models, dressed in pink, turquoise and yellow flowing clothes.  On the crumbling sidewalk by the fenced area, they set up children’s rocking horses with bright colored manes, a toy trombone and toy drum set.  The models played the toys like they were in a band.  They banged the horses and drums with sticks.  The ones playing the horses and drums stooped to play their instruments as they were so tall.

This was my dream.  I didn’t include the part before the dentist’s office where I’m on a seventies styled bus on my way to the dental office.  That would’ve made this already long post longer; besides, I didn’t think I needed to use that part…  Thanks for reading!  What kinds of crazy dreams do you have?

Red Leather Wedge Shoes

My train ride wasn’t so hellish today.  There was a mummy with her baby on there.  It was screeching.  It looked like a monkey – oh it was so, cute!  I looked at it and smiled.  Its mummy fed it crackers.  I was calm and giving out good vibrations because of it.  I don’t enjoy the trains they usually have on the A line because the doors at either end are locked.  They make me feel like I’m in a coffin.  The train I was on today was an old one.  These trains have doors that open on either end so you can walk through them to the next car, or take a piss between them.  Years ago on my way back from The Bottom Line with my boyfriend and another couple, I had to pee.  We were drunk.  On one of these trains, we all went between the cars, so that they could guard me so I could pee unseen.  It was winter and freezing cold between the cars.  They sang while I pissed, “Don’t freeze your booty hole!”  Good times…good times…

So it was nice, having to do this difficult errand and being given a big old silver train to ride.  I listened to the baby screeching and looked at different passengers.  The man across from me had a horrible patch of psoriasis on his arm, but I said, hey, I have a rash on my arm too, from food allergies, I’m guessing.  I must take care of it soon. There was a nice-looking woman wearing a short skirt and some old scraped up red leather wedge shoes.  The shoes were cool looking, high.  The wedge part was red leather as well and the toe part was like a pump shoe.  The rest of the woman’s clothes weren’t beaten up, only the shoes were.  She allowed me to look at her – she didn’t look back defensively, or give off a ‘why is this bitch looking at me vibration.’  So I looked at the monkey baby, the man with the rash and the lady with the red shoes between thinking about my mission.  When the train pulled into 59^th Street, the man sitting next to the woman in the red shoes told her that he liked her shoes too!  It was good to see that somebody else ‘got’ that kind of a look.