27 February 2001 ~ Boobs for Mardi Gras...

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone...

For the occasion, I wore Meg's Mardi Gras beads to work. Meg has about five zillion strings of stupid plastic beads; I'm not sure how they ever ended up at my house, but they come in handy every now and again.

(As a side note, there are DOZENS of things in my house that I'm not sure how I acquired... A glass from the Sports Bar, which I've never been to; a half dozen lighters of various colors that I didn't purchase; an ever-growing number of Bibles and Biblical reference books; and about five dozen t'shirts of various interests that do not interest me... Oh, and a small set of brown dishes that I think are my mom's, but how they got here is god's own private mystery... Let's just say my apartment is a garage sale in the making... Although I rather enjoy the Sports Bar glass...)

Anyway, I wore Meg's beads to work, with the eerie premonition that, somehow, I was going to end up partially naked because of said beads... I was right.

"So, did you earn those beads?" grinned José, Java Joe's day manager.

"As in, did I show my boobs to someone in order to get them? No... They're Meg's..." (Although, gahd knows, if Meg's never seen my boobs in all the time I've known her, there's something seriously wrong with the way the world is functioning...)

"I have some beads at my house, you know," suggested José. "It's never too late..."

"Hm... Well, I'll have to stop in some time," I said. "Provided, of course, that nobody snaps a picture of me while I'm sitting naked on your toilet." (José's collection of naked girls on toilets is astounding... Frighteningly, most of them are of Java Joe's employees, past and present... Oy.)

"Hey, can we wear your beads?" asked Tera and Magen, seated at the counter.

"Sure, but--" (pause) "You have to earn 'em!"

So the two flashed me. Unfortunately, I was doing dishes and didn't catch any of it, but I let them wear the beads anyway...

But you know, something snapped in me then... How come, just because I already HAD beads, I didn't get to flash anybody? So, not to be outdone, and having no good reason for it, I flashed Tera and Magen back. Yes, I was at work. Yes, I was briefly topless behind the counter... Hey, get over it. Unless you're the health department, I don't want to hear a peep. If you ARE the health department, you can't prove anything. Besides, it's not like I'm the FIRST person to have been less than fully clothed in Java Joes' fine establishment! Lemme tell ya a story about those bathrooms... On second thought, nevermind...

"Can I ask you something? And this is not to be weird or anything..." (Tera has never once managed to really shock me, but she's always got to make sure...) "Are your boobs real?"

I giggled. I'm still giggling.

Yes, my boobs are real. As a matter of fact, I'm quite pleased with them. From what I understand, other people have been quite pleased with them too. I'd like to think random strangers are occasionally attracted to me for my ravishing intellect and my glorious sense of humor, but I will admit that, in at least a few cases, it's been about the boobs. I suspect my boobs have made me quite a few friends. I suspect my boobs may have contributed to getting me a few relationships, too. Not that this bothers me; I think it's sort of amusing, actually, and I'm not above wearing low-cut shirts... I'm a rather non-descript person, I think, and non-descript people don't get noticed; a non-descript person with nice boobs.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Almost necessarily, people make judgements about one another immediately because of their appearances. It's inevitable. I'm always astounded by statements like, "I don't like it when people see me as fat. I like it when people see me as a person." Or, "See that [whisper] Chinese [end whisper] guy over there?" Such constant denial of our bodies! People see my body every day as I set foot outside. Few people have the benefit of seeing anything more than that.

I always wonder, when I meet a person who truly is obese, am I supposed to pretend they're not? Am I supposed to pretend I don't see them? Am I supposed to pretend I don't notice differences between human bodies? That the Chinese guy in front of me isn't really Chinese, because in labelling him as such, I've made mention of facial features particular to Chinese people? For gahd's sake, really fat people KNOW they're fat, and Chinese people KNOW they're Chinese. Why is it considered impolite to recognize these things?

This has been bothering me for maybe a month now. Why is it shameful to have a body and to identify with it? Why is it inappropriate -- or worse, sexually suggestive -- to discuss my body? I'm skinny, I've got nice boobs, and I'm otherwise fairly plain.

I want people to see more than that, of course, but I'm not sure there really is a way to expose my soul, my identity, in full, without giving a glimpse of the way I move, my gestures, the particulars of my features...

I've begun to write a paper, actually; this is something that's not going to leave my mind until I've written about it. And no, I'm not in college, and this is not for a class, but suddenly, the idea of bodies, and the DENIAL of them, is absolutely fascinating to me.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I'm in desperate need of a praline latté.

~Helena*

"I didn't come here to lose my shirt. I just came to take it off." --Benjamin Horne, Twin Peaks