Femininity
Feb. 21st, 2007 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amanda_loddenYesterday at lunch, we were discussing how one of my friends' girlfriend is upset, because he plans to attend the live game we're putting on. They have a long-distance relationship, so it means he won't be driving 4 hours to see her that weekend. She's upset because she considers it their "anniversary weekend" in that they met at a clogging workshop that is always held the first weekend of May. That workshop is canceled entirely this year (otherwise he would have skipped the live game and gone to it with her), and in 2005 when they met the particular dates happened to fall in the middle of the week (The workshop would have been April 30 & May 1), meaning that the weekend before the live game would be equally valid as their "anniversary weekend". More importantly, he doesn't think that the anniversary is all that important; wedding anniversaries, sure, but not "the weekend we met", especially not when it's not possible to be in "the place we met" at the same time. At one point in the conversation he turned to me and asked for a "girl's perspective" on the matter.
It was sweet and all, but when it comes right down to it: I'm terrible at being a girl. My plumbing is on the inside and every 4 weeks I am held hostage by my hormones for a day or two, but that's pretty much where it ends-- when it comes to all the gender cliches, I'm pretty solidly over in guy territory. I've been known to game with friends (and not my husband) on my wedding anniversary. (What? We had dinner together first, it counts as romantic. It does! Leave me alone.) Last week on Valentine's Day, I went clogging. John stayed home (though he stopped by a store on the way home and ought me Godiva, which was waiting for me when I got home around 11pm). Clearly I am not the person to ask whether a live game should take priority over a hey-we-met anniversary. My solution is for her to come here and attend the live game too, so she can still see him on their anniversary weekend. She doesn't think of it as a "solution"-- more like a "double insult".
Every so often (usually when I'm being held hostage by those hormones) I wish I had a better handle on the "girl stuff". Hand me a hammer and a screwdriver and I'm fine, but hand me a beauty kit and I'm lost. I have no clue how fake nails work. I've tried them a few times, and they always pop off within an hour. The only possible way to keep them on, as near as I can tell, is to become an invalid the entire time you're wearing them and do absolutely nothing with your hands. And that includes not going to the bathroom, because I have lost fake nails while washing my hands. And speaking of washing hands, can someone please explain how to do it while wearing a ring? I can't stand the feel of water underneath the ring. I can't even stand it when my finger is slightly clammy. When I bother to wear a ring I spend more time with it in my pocket drying off than I do with it on my finger. Is it just a feeling I'm supposed to live with (ewwwww), or is there some hand-washing technique I've never mastered?
I don't "get" jewelry to begin with. I get how most of it is supposed to work (except those weird slave-bracelet things with an attached ring, which mystify me), I just don't understand why so many people bother. It's all so annoying. Earrings poke. Rings get wet, and I get them caught on clothing, passerbys, etc. Toe rings flat-out hurt, and make me walk weird to boot. Necklaces hang uncomfortably and get tangled in my hair. Bracelets drive me nuts. I don't even like to wear a watch on my wrist; why would I put something non-practical on it instead?
I do wear dresses, when I'm forced to wear something nicer than jeans and a T-shirt. I have nothing in between "nice dress suitable for a wedding or funeral" and "T-shirt", mostly because I have never figured out what the intermediate classifications are. When I worked at Netrex the dress code was "business casual" and I wore a dress pretty much every day, not because I liked looking pretty but because I couldn't fathom what "business casual" was. I knew I could be fired for showing up in jeans, so I wore the only things I had that weren't jeans. (When I worked for GLTG they were also "business casual" but they'd let us office techs get away with wearing jeans, so I stuck with that. It was much more comfortable.) I still don't know what makes something "business casual" versus just plain "casual". I have tried looking for something that could be described as "nice pantsuit suitable for a wedding or a funeral" but I haven't found anything that didn't look stupid on me, so I'm stuck with dresses.
You know that commercial a while ago for some men's facial product (I've forgotten which one), in which the guy looks in the medicine cabinet, sees all his wife's tubes and bottles and gets this scared look on his face? Then he closes the medicine cabinet, opens it up again, and it's got just one tube in it (of the product being advertised, of course). The voiceover is something like "You can take care of your face her way, or you can do it the guy's way. [Product name], the only [lotion? cleanser? whatever] you need." I totally wish they made a similar product like that for women who are clueless about those bottles and tubes, too. Or I wish I could remember what the product was, because I bet I could get away with using it, too. When I look at the "skin care" aisle in the drugstore, my eyes glaze over and I grab something at random in the hopes that maybe it will do something good. It never does.
The worst part is that there seems to be nowhere to learn this stuff if you're over the age of 15. I can find all sorts of books and guides to putting on trendy makeup styles (the kind only suitable for high school hallways and maybe Tammy Faye Baker), but nothing geared towards older women (until age 60 or so, and then there's a big section of "how to look younger" guides that ARE specific. But I'm 33 and often mistaken for a college student, so I don't really want to look any younger. And yes, I have tried some of the techniques in those books in the hopes that they'd still work for my age group. They don't.) If I want to paint cool stripes on my nails to show off to my teenage friends, there's entire stores full of books on how to do it. If I just want to paint my nails without getting hair marks in the nails when I sleep (yes, I do. Often. Even when I paint my nails 10 hours before going to bed.), I'm on my own. I can find books that will tell me that I should wear reds and yellows if I am a "winter" but blues and greens if I am a "summer" (er, or maybe the other way around), but I have no freaking clue how to figure out which I am. I assume I'm the blues-and-greens one because those colors look better on me than reds and yellows, but then the colors they suggest for lipsticks and eyeshadows and the like look horrid, so I don't know. Is there an option for half-winter and half-summer, maybe "spring"? I'm definitely a spring. Or a guy. One of the two.
It was sweet and all, but when it comes right down to it: I'm terrible at being a girl. My plumbing is on the inside and every 4 weeks I am held hostage by my hormones for a day or two, but that's pretty much where it ends-- when it comes to all the gender cliches, I'm pretty solidly over in guy territory. I've been known to game with friends (and not my husband) on my wedding anniversary. (What? We had dinner together first, it counts as romantic. It does! Leave me alone.) Last week on Valentine's Day, I went clogging. John stayed home (though he stopped by a store on the way home and ought me Godiva, which was waiting for me when I got home around 11pm). Clearly I am not the person to ask whether a live game should take priority over a hey-we-met anniversary. My solution is for her to come here and attend the live game too, so she can still see him on their anniversary weekend. She doesn't think of it as a "solution"-- more like a "double insult".
Every so often (usually when I'm being held hostage by those hormones) I wish I had a better handle on the "girl stuff". Hand me a hammer and a screwdriver and I'm fine, but hand me a beauty kit and I'm lost. I have no clue how fake nails work. I've tried them a few times, and they always pop off within an hour. The only possible way to keep them on, as near as I can tell, is to become an invalid the entire time you're wearing them and do absolutely nothing with your hands. And that includes not going to the bathroom, because I have lost fake nails while washing my hands. And speaking of washing hands, can someone please explain how to do it while wearing a ring? I can't stand the feel of water underneath the ring. I can't even stand it when my finger is slightly clammy. When I bother to wear a ring I spend more time with it in my pocket drying off than I do with it on my finger. Is it just a feeling I'm supposed to live with (ewwwww), or is there some hand-washing technique I've never mastered?
I don't "get" jewelry to begin with. I get how most of it is supposed to work (except those weird slave-bracelet things with an attached ring, which mystify me), I just don't understand why so many people bother. It's all so annoying. Earrings poke. Rings get wet, and I get them caught on clothing, passerbys, etc. Toe rings flat-out hurt, and make me walk weird to boot. Necklaces hang uncomfortably and get tangled in my hair. Bracelets drive me nuts. I don't even like to wear a watch on my wrist; why would I put something non-practical on it instead?
I do wear dresses, when I'm forced to wear something nicer than jeans and a T-shirt. I have nothing in between "nice dress suitable for a wedding or funeral" and "T-shirt", mostly because I have never figured out what the intermediate classifications are. When I worked at Netrex the dress code was "business casual" and I wore a dress pretty much every day, not because I liked looking pretty but because I couldn't fathom what "business casual" was. I knew I could be fired for showing up in jeans, so I wore the only things I had that weren't jeans. (When I worked for GLTG they were also "business casual" but they'd let us office techs get away with wearing jeans, so I stuck with that. It was much more comfortable.) I still don't know what makes something "business casual" versus just plain "casual". I have tried looking for something that could be described as "nice pantsuit suitable for a wedding or a funeral" but I haven't found anything that didn't look stupid on me, so I'm stuck with dresses.
You know that commercial a while ago for some men's facial product (I've forgotten which one), in which the guy looks in the medicine cabinet, sees all his wife's tubes and bottles and gets this scared look on his face? Then he closes the medicine cabinet, opens it up again, and it's got just one tube in it (of the product being advertised, of course). The voiceover is something like "You can take care of your face her way, or you can do it the guy's way. [Product name], the only [lotion? cleanser? whatever] you need." I totally wish they made a similar product like that for women who are clueless about those bottles and tubes, too. Or I wish I could remember what the product was, because I bet I could get away with using it, too. When I look at the "skin care" aisle in the drugstore, my eyes glaze over and I grab something at random in the hopes that maybe it will do something good. It never does.
The worst part is that there seems to be nowhere to learn this stuff if you're over the age of 15. I can find all sorts of books and guides to putting on trendy makeup styles (the kind only suitable for high school hallways and maybe Tammy Faye Baker), but nothing geared towards older women (until age 60 or so, and then there's a big section of "how to look younger" guides that ARE specific. But I'm 33 and often mistaken for a college student, so I don't really want to look any younger. And yes, I have tried some of the techniques in those books in the hopes that they'd still work for my age group. They don't.) If I want to paint cool stripes on my nails to show off to my teenage friends, there's entire stores full of books on how to do it. If I just want to paint my nails without getting hair marks in the nails when I sleep (yes, I do. Often. Even when I paint my nails 10 hours before going to bed.), I'm on my own. I can find books that will tell me that I should wear reds and yellows if I am a "winter" but blues and greens if I am a "summer" (er, or maybe the other way around), but I have no freaking clue how to figure out which I am. I assume I'm the blues-and-greens one because those colors look better on me than reds and yellows, but then the colors they suggest for lipsticks and eyeshadows and the like look horrid, so I don't know. Is there an option for half-winter and half-summer, maybe "spring"? I'm definitely a spring. Or a guy. One of the two.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-21 11:56 pm (UTC)I don't know what the deal is with a million tubes and bottles of facial stuff for women, either. I use *one* facial cleanser that's good to my skin and some moisturizer. Ray's got more face lotion and skin care items than I. *snicker*
I think that is the best way to choose someone's "colors" too. What you like to wear and gives you confidence. I'm there. As for having no hair marks in your nailpolish, I find two coats of Maybelline speed drying polish followed by a clear speed dry topcoat works best.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 03:07 pm (UTC)If you believe the Internet, you have light skin, light hair, and light eyes, so you may be a spring. What does that mean? Well, to the internet it means that paler/lighter/pastel colors tend to look nice on you. So pale purple, pale blue, pink, greens would work. If you wanted a darker color, I'd pick navy or black. Honestly, I'd pick from those colors ones you like and go with that; I've seen you look nice in all the colors I've mentioned. ;) Sometimes you can hold a shirt up to your face in the store and see if it makes you look like a ghost or a clown... then you avoid that color.
IMHO, 'business casual' means 'preppy 80s' or 'preppy 50s'. Nice sweater, knit top, or button-up shirt with slacks or a 'modest' skirt. (I can't find button up shirts easily, so for me it's usually 'knit top', 'sweater' or 'mock turtleneck' in winter.) Usually you want to avoid necklines that are too t-shirty, so a mock turtle neck, a vee neck, or one of the larger shaped necklines (scoop, square, u, boat, etc). Vee necks tend to prevent uniboob and give you more 'vertical' lines, I'm told, but you're mileage may vary. I can't wear full turtlenecks any more... I feel like I'm being choked to death after a while. O:) T shirt necks are okay on sweaters, but obviously printed sweatshirts are not good. If you like golf/polo shirts, those are the Big Easy of business casual.
As for nail polish... it annoys me more than making me feel all princess-y to have nails. That said, I've found that judicious application of a hair dryer between coats of polish tends to firm things up nicely. A bottom coat and a top coat are irksome to apply but can really make things last much longer and look nice longer. One of the few times I went and got my toes done with 'the girls', the nail person had a spray can of some kind of shellac that he zapped my toes with. I swear that nail job stayed on for months, but it's probably only in a 'beauty' store. (finding a UV light like at the nail place might help too, or it might be too much work. ;)
Jewelry is only fun if it doesn't annoy me. At some point I learned the trick of not noticing it. Then again, I'm the person who buys small hoop earrings, puts them in, and then leaves the same ones in for days or weeks. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 03:09 pm (UTC)I hate hate hate the statement 'you're a woman, what does this mean?' I feel like I'm a really bad example of feminity. Maybe it was too many kung fu movies and swordswinging in my childhood.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 08:11 pm (UTC)I think the most mysterious thing about the opposite sex, in either direction, is that we're really not that mysterious.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-23 01:48 am (UTC)I don't see the point of fake nails at all because I think they're a hassle (of course I grow halfway decent nails when they don't split on me).
Clothes, I would say casual is real simple - dockers and a nice sweater can be casual. I have a load of dress pants from Lane Bryant for teaching that I really love, but they're that really baggy legged style which I can't see being your thing.
Jewelry - there are lots of body jewelry styles that you can put in and keep in all the time. Since they don't have backs to them, they don't poke you in the head. I have earrings in all the time. I just make sure I have something in I can sleep in so they're not annoying. Changing jewelry all the time is tiring. I do wear a watch to work now but only because my building can't decide what time it is and the clocks are different in all the rooms so I have to have one on to stay on schedule.
This all being said, I think some people always will look young. I'm going to be 30 this July, and I still get carded at Meijer for cold medicine. I can't imagine what would happen if I decided to buy cigarettes!