Daddy types

I want to be a man – but not any man, a stay-at-home dad.

You see them now and again in my liberal neighborhood, and they’re always so relaxed, rolling with their kids in the dirt at the playground; calmly reading a newspaper at the coffeehouse while the kid drives a hotwheel along the bench; looking relaxed and unfussed and handsome in their hipster trilbies or blue Oaklandish tees with an adorable toddler on their shoulders.

They seem so calm – maybe they didn’t remember extra clothes, a water bottle, the favorite stuffed bunny, but they don’t seem to care. They’re just taking the world as it goes.

It’s just that man thing, isn’t it? Less stuff to worry about so less worry. The optimism of the young, white, well-off bay area guy is justified, because things are pretty great for him. I just want to relax sometimes, not worry about all that household executive crap and just have some of the confidence of these men.

And then I pass a guy struggling to put his screaming baby in a backpack, looking harried and close to panic, obviously wishing with all his might that the mother would come and work that magic…

Then I pity them.

(T-shirt)

My old ponies

Butterscotch and Blossom sit on the windowsill in my daughter’s play area. They were born in 1982, so they’re getting on in age – Blossom’s got missing hair, artfully replaced by a bunch of lilac and yellow ribbons – but their expressions are still patient and placid, friendly and calm.

They’re My Little Ponies -- the Barbies of the animal kingdom, with their girlish prancing forms and large, coy eyes. And they are my My Little Ponies, accumulated during the years when pre-teen horse craziness and an affinity for bright colors intersected.

I had many, and last time we were at my mother’s house we dug them out of the closet for my daughter.

But I feel weird about them, the way they are anthropomorphized – in a way that suggests, if not overtly, sexiness and all the “girl” qualities of flirtatiousness and shiny, shiny hair.

Blossom and Butterscotch are from the first run of ponies, before they got quite so bad, but I have some from later years, too, and they only get more ridiculous.

I’m not sure if I want my daughter to subtly absorb all this weird stuff -- I mean, these ponies come with everything from sparkly combs to wedding dresses, disco gear and roller skates (all of which I own). I try to gracefully accept the fact that I should relax and let her organize them by size, which is what she does with them, and stop worrying. (Of course I could always sell them…)

But they do sort of bug me out. I don't approve and at the same time I cherish them in the way one cherishes a loved toy from a happy childhood.

Especially old Blossom.

Hello, I'm cute

Now that we all have online profiles, whether it’s something vaguely professional liked LinkedIn or it’s Facebook or just your profile at some Ning site, I’m seeing a lot of photos. Photos of people. Photos of women, ordinary women, confronted with the sudden need to look sexy.

I’m not talking about bikini shots on your CV website or anything ridiculous like that. I’m talking about the pressure to at least look “cute” online.
Because we all know snapshots are so cruel in their variability – you get one where you look great and one where you were having a great time but you look sweaty and tired and horribly old.

Think of the hundreds of work minutes wasted by a million women trawling through photos to find the right one to post!

And as a vain person, believe me I am not immune.

(There’s always the “photo of your kitten” route, but then people like me who forget names get confused. Like there’s a guy on Facebook who friended me with a picture of a – I guess *his* -- dog, and I have no clue who he is. I’m sure I do know him, I could just click “accept” but it bothers me.)

Hairless

So I shave. Not everything (!) but my legs and armpits. I lived for many years in a European country where, contrary to American assumptions, shaving was mandatory. That is, almost everybody did it, and if you didn’t, you were gross. I didn’t want to be gross, so I shaved.

Before that, I went to college in a pretty hippyfied town where it was cool grunge nature girl not to shave – a trend I also slavishly followed, in my purple plaid, flannel men’s shirt and too big green corduroys.

But now I’m back in America, and I still shave…but sometimes I wonder why.

Well, honestly, I still do it to conform. The only problem is, what am I conforming with? I mean, why are women supposed to be hairless? Because it references youth –- and as the parent of an actual naturally hairless pre-pre-prepubescent girl, I am kind of disturbed by my own behavior.

But not enough to stop shaving.

Spanx for the memories

Oh my god, I come up with the most wretched post titles, someone really ought to stop me.

What I am actually planning on writing about is another wardrobe problem. I have to go shopping soon for clothing for a specific event. I don't hate clothes shopping but right now it's pretty far down on my list as far as leisure activities. It's expensive, for one thing, and it takes time, for another. Also right now I am about five pounds heavier than normal. This is due to my yearly summertime bloat. (I tried on some dressy clothes - the kind not made of forgiving stretchy denim or cotton - and they still fit, but I'm right at the outer edge where I can wear them.) And that means that anything that I buy right now which fits will be too big when I go back to my more usual weight. And we don't have enough closet space to hang onto two complete wardrobes in two sizes, though I think every woman probably has some size range in her closet. More to the point, I don't want to buy an awesome outfit I love but won't be able to wear most of the time.

But then I thought: I can wear tights when I'm shopping! Spanx, specifically. And that'll suck me in enough that when my weight goes down in winter, the new clothes will still fit perfectly.

So is this like a moral or feminist victory of some kind about women and weight? I doubt it, but it's an elegant practical solution to my problem. Which I'll settle for, right now.

Weighty topic of weight

So a strange thing happens to me every summer: I gain about ten pounds between June and October. This has been going on for about 4 years now, and it wasn't until last summer that I realized there was a pattern and it wasn't just the start of my slide into obesity.

But - and this is where you're going to roll your eyes - I'm not actually positive that I gain the weight. It could be an illusion caused by the summer's increased humidity and water retention plus being more self-conscious because of wearing skimpier summer clothing. The only time I ever get on the scale is at the doctor's office*.

Generally I judge my weight by how well my clothes fit, and since I wear non-elastic jeans about 3 times a week, it's pretty easy to tell if there's an increase in the amount of muffin top spillover at the waist or if, looking down at my thighs, they look like plump sausages in a denim casing, decorated with cat's whiskers at the crotch. And because it's summer, a thin t-shirt doesn't do much to hide the ooze over the top of the waistband of my jeans - you can see a fabric-covered bulge clearly outlined in a way that my winter wardrobe of seventeen layers doesn't show.

Okay, so it's seasonal, and it sort of doesn't matter if it's in my head or real, since it'll go away. But it means I spend nearly half the year feeling fat and uncomfortable in my own skin, and getting into bathing suits takes more courage than it does for a holiday in the Caribbean in February.

I'm writing about this now because the summer downward spiral has started and I'm feeling blobby and gross - it's like having PMS bloat for five months. (During, of all cruelties of fate, bathing suit season, goddamit!) I don't really know the answer - if I should just buy a scale and clear it up for once and for all, if I should have a larger summer wardrobe (my clothes still fit ... I just don't perceive that they fit me as well or as flatteringly), if I should talk about it with my shrink and work on body acceptance no matter what season it is - obviously I've got some a few issues still around my weight. Maybe there is no easy answer to this one.




* Unsurprisingly, if I owned a scale I would use it to torment myself. So scales are Not Allowed in the house, apart from cooking scales. And - according to the doctor's office - my weight has been stable for about 5 years now. But I'm not usually at the doctor's in summer either; plus you can be five pounds heavier or lighter on any given day just because of water retention ... You see now why I don't have a scale?

Short vs. long

Okay, so I mentioned my haircut, right? It’s totally neat and chic and arty and fun and – short.

See, I used to have long hair, for ages. Short hair looks better on me though, and it’s hella (as they say ‘round here) easy to make look good (thank you, Aveda).

But.

Guys don’t flirt with me *nearly* as much. And this bothers me.
I can’t help it. Its true that I’m not looking for a date, I’ve got a steady, but I’m not living in a cave, free from all societal pressures, and so yes, I value males telling me I’m cute.

And I’m not *less* cute than when I had long hair, there’s just something guy-pulling about long hair.

It seems sort of hypocritical of me to both value the flirt attention but be mad that guys like some stereotypical maidenly image. But, you know, I am.

I am still thinking about this. Sometimes I decide that I’ll go back to long hair, even though I know I looked much less put together, more frumpy, and also I had to constantly wash it. Then I want to smack myself and say, ‘Hello, you look good, shut up already.’