Ruminations on beauty, self-worth and practicality...

[juliebata]

In the late summer of the year 2000, I was getting ready to fly alone to the Chicago worldcon. I wanted to splurge on something beautifying for myself, as this was to be a big vacation for me.
I was still married at the time, I wasn't out to attract someone new, but I wanted to try to do something fun that made me feel good about myself. I have always thought of myself as unattractive. I have often been treated by the world at large as though I was unattractive. But the thing I hated most about myself has always been my hands. I always wanted to have pretty hands and be a hand model, but my nails are the grossest in the land. Short, stumpy, easy to break, never could I get them to be the same length at one time. So one day, I went into a salon in Los Altos, showed them my stumps and said "can you do anything with these? Can you make these hands pretty?" "Of course we can," said the nice lady, and an hour later I walked out with the most beautiful nails the world had ever seen. I was stunned, I had no idea that 10 carefully placed plastic tips, some acrylic resin, and a topcoat of pale pink could change my whole worldview! I felt 500 times better about myself, and vowed to get my nails done from then on, for as long as I could afford it. Today, I am decidedly poorer, but I still get them done, I found an inexpensive salon here in Madison. There are other things I should spend my money on, I suppose, but I consider this one indulgence to be very important to my sense of well-being. Not everyone notices a gals nails, but I feel so much prettier when I have them, and I don't want to have to give that feeling up.
The only disadvantage to having nice nails, is that they make it much harder for me to type! After about two weeks or so, the real nails grow out and the fake part starts to detatch, so you go and get them re-done. I'm about a week overdue for this, so all my fakies have broken off, I'm left with my original, natural, ugly stumps. I feel ugly, but man- I can type so much faster! Tomorrow, I will go and have them done, and tomorrow night I will type slowly again, but that's OK with me.
Am I vain? Am I superficial? Does my need for one tiny aspect of my life to feel good seem silly?
-Juliebata

Comments

The Answers To ALL Your Questions!

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

At least, all the questions in this post. And in order:

No, no, and not at frickin' all.

The Answers To ALL My Questions!

[juliebata.livejournal.com]

Thanks, you still rock...
-Juliebata

[numbat.livejournal.com]

You have read Lucy Huntzinger's article about nails haven't you?

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

Hey, I say "Whatever floats your boat!" is good, and you're even aware and accepting of the downsides of long nails.

Isn't it funny, how with all this free-floating judgement on our looks, we can end up focussing it on one part of our bodies? I wouldn't have ever thought to look at your hands with any kind of pre-conception of what they should look like. Then again, it is all in the mind of the beholder: there are pictures of myself I abhor, and dear hubby just Doesn't Get It about why I react as I do. (That is, until he and I both remember all that free-floating hostility about real women's bodies...)

I think your manicure sounds delightful, and a sanity saver. My indulgence, no prizes for guessing, is getting a professional massage. (And right up there is café habitation and sometimes shopping, but it must be of the right sort and with the right friend...)

Crazy(and some day I'll go the whole hog and get the facial, the wrapping - not for weight[water] loss but for the sensation, the massages, the reflexologies... yummmmmm! One day, or maybe even twooooooo!)Soph

Lucy's article...

[juliebata.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't read the article, can you point me to it? I always meant to look at her stuff, but never did. Now I hear she's not writing anymore...
-Juliebata

Re: Lucy's article...

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I suggest you ask replyhazy for a loan of the recent Lucy Huntzinger collection, A Bright Particular Star. I think you will reallty appreciate what she has to say about artificial nails.

[rdkeir.livejournal.com]

Julie, you are not vain or superficial, nor silly.

You are pretty, If there are people in the world who treat you as though you are unattractive, then they're fools.

Focusing on one body part...

[juliebata.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of yet another memory from high school. I was in this sort of "junior psych" class, and we were all supposed to tell the whole class something that we hated about ourselves. (I have no idea what this was supposed to accomplish.) I chose my name, I always hated and was teased about my name. Couldn't wait to get married and change it! There was a girl in class, her name was Paula Peterson. She was pretty, popular, had the best clothes, perfect hair. I envied her for all that, and especially, for having a perfectly normal name. I wondered what it was like to go through life with a name like that, never being embarrassed about it. When it came time for her to say what she hated about herself, I couldn't imagine what it would be, I thought she was perfect! She got up and said "my feet, I hate my feet. Look at them, they're SO HUGE and UGLY!" "I'm so embarrassed by them." Mind you, her feet were completely normal in every way, shod in the most expensive of Nike sneakers, not oversized in the least. Somewhere along the line, she got the notion fixed in her brain that her feet were too big, and it had a huge impact on her life. It was an eye opener for me, everyone pictures themselves differently than what the rest of the world sees. At the time, I was so focused on hating everything about myself, that I didn't notice that most of the other teenagers around me went through the same kind of thing.

Anyway, I've had my manicure, and I feel fine!
-Juliebata

[juliebata.livejournal.com]

Thank you...
-Juliebata

Re: Focusing on one body part...

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

Yay, manicures!

I must also remain mindful of this distinction: focussing hate on one body part is not the same as feeling pretty when you've treated one part with special attention. She can hate her feet, but was there anything she did to them to make her feel pretty, by compensation? I think you're ahead of the game, when you can attend to the part, like your hands, because that acknowledges how important it is to you.

Crazy(must look you up in the ol' hometown for those pampering facials, manicures, et al...)Soph