just so you know

the red dress.

in

did i ever tell you that i blame a red dress for the fact that i am so darn tall?

because i do.

and i blame charlize theron.

more specifically, i blame charlize theron in that red dress.

you know the one i'm talking about. you must.


hmmm. okay, yes, i see your point. now that i look at it i realize it's not exactly red (the footnote says bronze). but you get the point. 

i mean, come on, is she not heaven in that dress?

this spawned a certain love affair with ms. theron, such that, i took to googling. and what i remember is that i was particularly taken with her height. 

five feet, ten inches. 

glorious! huzzah! yes, i would be that height as well then. i was old enough to know that the chances were pretty good that i would be tall, so might as well really be. 

so i took a sharpie, pulled out a tape measure, and charted out the distance on the frame leading into my bathroom. 

growing up i would stand there. against the molding, mark how tall i was, how much progress i had made, and how far i had yet to go. 

and when all was said and done and all the proverbial cookies had crumbled (puberty and growth spurts and the joys of teenage-hood) don't know you, i stood right up against the frame, put my hand atop my head, stepped away to look where it had landed and...BLAM. 5 foot 10. 

some things are willed into existence. of this i'm almost nearly, just pretty sure, nursing a strong inkling that yes, indeed, that is true. 

the funny thing is. i'd give a few of those inches back. because this is what i know now: men are short. particularly those in drama school. particularly on the east coast. and the thing is i'm like anyone else: i wanna wear heals! i want to feel small and demure and lithe next to my beau! 

then again, this too is true: it's great for concerts, and...

oh, gosh, that's all i've got so far, it's great for concerts. 

i've been working on it though. of late. i've been working on pulling my shoulders back, unfurling the full width of my chest, holding my neck high. because for better or worse it's not just ms. theron's story, it's mine. and when i'm surrounded by family, and the tall women we boast, i know it's part history, part heritage, part love-story.

but do send your really tall guy friends my way, won't you?

getting older.

in


yesterday i confessed to tom that i'm having difficulty with the number 26. i am almost 26. just writing that now nearly takes my breath away.

he told me not to worry, it's not till you turn 27 that you're in your late twenties.

funny, i didn't think it was till 28.

oh boy.




a little note to some of the anonymous commenters out there. (and this will be the one and only time i address this).

in





there were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.

anais nin



i've been thinking about words lately.

words versus experience. words aiming at experience. and how words do not always fail, but they are never the thing.

a photo of an apple, let's say (first thing that came to mind, must remember to have one later) is not the apple. it is an image of the apple. and a compressed image at that. and because compressed, inherently distorted.

words convey an image. compressed and distorted. aiming at truth, but not the truth itself.

when i first went to see tom many moons ago (to deal with that nasty case of bulimia) we talked a lot about weight. a number. weight is a number. but it isn't, not really. weight is a constantly changing thing, contingent upon countless factors--many of them unknowable. tom told me that even with the very best scales the world has to offer, taking my weight at the same time each week, after many weeks all he would be able to give me was an approximation and an idea as to whether my weight was going up, down, or holding steady (well, holding as steady as weight ever can hold).

but we americans we like to know things. we like things in black in white. we want the concrete. and a number, well, that's concrete.

i began this blog as a way to tunnel out of a very dark period in my life. a way to focus on the good and identify all those things that fill me up and fill me out. as a way of cataloging progress and change. but after the last three years with this blogspot lover of mine, the only thing i can say with any certainty is this: i am not what i wrote last week, nor what i wrote two years ago. but somewhere in the space between--if you could subtract the one from the other--somewhere in the weeds of all that muck, you'll find me.

this is all an attempt. an attempt at truth. an attempt at my truth. and i tell lies and omit things and twist the facts to aim at a larger truth. but it is not truth.

there is a buddhist expression: the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.

 everything i've shared here, it is not the moon, it only points to it.

but i'm trying. and that's something.






on getting bangs.

in

i needed a wee of a change. you know?

and i thought, bangs, so very parisian, no?

yesterday a man stopped me at work and asked if people don't tell me all the time i look like carla bruni?

i do not. i do not look like carla bruni. and i've never gotten it before. (she's far better looking than i).

but i understand why he said it--it's the haircut. with the bangs and when i wear my hair down, well, i understand where this man was coming from. 

and listen, a compliment like that, i'm gonna take it and run.

after all i was going for french. and she's married to the president of france, so...

i might have over shot it. 







(ps: i'll get an email from my mother saying this photo doesn't really look like me. 
and she'll be right. 
but that's the miracle of instagram--it's a really cheap way of airbrushing 
{and making you look better than you do in real life}).