i was sitting on the couch the other night
scrolling through some old pictures on my phone
when it suddenly dawned on me
there is a human being in this world who likes me.
What the hell?
Do I have a self-esteem problem? I don't think so. Maybe I did, when I was that quiet kid whose aspirations to be one of the "cool" emo kids were botched by a mother that refused to pay for clothes from Hot Topic and a daily tennis routine that annihilated any hope of pale ghostly skin. But you learn things when you strike out on your own for a while. You learn how to admire without coveting, to scoop yourself out of the fatalistic, pessimistic "why was i born this way" hole and tell yourself in a mantra, "i may have been this way, but who says i have to stay this way?" You grow into your own skin and soon enough, you learn to love the most important person: yourself.
And yet, the idea that someone else might feel the same way is fucking unbelievable.
WHY? ARE YOU INSANE? I want to shake this human by the collar, but I'm too proud to appear as if I am fishing for compliments. Since when did I possess the ability to inspire such grand chivalrous gestures? Since when did anyone ever feel compelled to prepare their heart as an offering to this false idol? The only explanation must be extreme desperation or absolute madness.
I'm not trying to be self-deprecating---"Aw shucks, who would ever feel a thing for sad ole me?" It's just that when you spend your whole life watching the ladies around you pair off with the gentlemen to dance, you start to believe that you're just simply not attractive (to the right people)... and that's okay. Just as you learn to accept that you're never going to be the cool emo kid, you accept your dealt cards and move on with your life.
Until you don't.
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
June 11, 2015
November 1, 2014
Halloween Cinderella
I almost didn't go out for Halloween last night.
We studied until 8 PM. Spitfire had been craving fried chicken for days, so we piled up in Asian Jesus's car and headed over to Raisin' Kanes on St. Charles. As we consumed our greased piles of soul food, the conversation somehow led to the topic that had left me fuming mad at him almost two weeks ago.
He'd already given me his spiel. Now his roommate Asian Jesus was trying to articulate why he hated hook-up culture. Spitfire and I listened, patiently, commenting and objecting here and there.
Spitfire and I are older than the boys. Only by one year in my case, and three years in hers. I understood their arguments, for I choose not to participate in the hook-up culture either.
I think you're the type to put your eggs in as few baskets as possible. But you'll put a lot of eggs in.
That's how a friend described me, and in many ways, it is true.
So, I agreed with Asian Jesus when he talked about his tendency to treat relationships with such seriousness and intensity, that the idea of casual engagement of heart and body for one night with no strings attached was impossible for him. But once again, I still felt a hollow apathy about hook-up culture -- in that, I really don't care if other people choose to hook-up. As long as people don't try to force me into their culture, I'm willing to accept theirs.
I tried explaining this to my mother a week ago, and her words were eerily echoed by Asian Jesus last night. Do people who engage in hook-up culture treat their relationships more lightly than others like me, him, and Asian Jesus who choose not to? What will happen if you end up dating someone who's been part of that culture?
Perhaps I am naive and obstinate, but I want to believe that whoever I choose to date will like me enough that his loyalty to me will speak for itself, regardless of how he may have behaved when he was single. Perhaps I don't feel that the ability to separate the emotional and the physical is mutually exclusive from the ability to be faithful.
But what do I know? I have been single all my life. I watch people around me make mistakes and learn from them. But it's been an objective, detached education.
After dinner, I went back to my house. Both my roommates were gone for the night. It was only 9 PM, and I'd been planning to stay-in and study, but suddenly I was overcome with an acute feeling of being very very lame.
I didn't have a fairy godmother. I barely even did my make-up, since I was worried about getting to the club before my classmates dispersed. I put on my blonde wig, tucked it under a bear-eared beanie, paired a varsity jacket with a band tee, and drove to Downtown in my rental Ford Charger. Afraid of the traffic around Frenchmen, I parked my car by the hospital and walked for half an hour to my destination.
It was a chilly night -- the coldest I've experienced since moving here. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked briskly down the glitzy Canal Street. The marquee lights from Saenger Theater reminded me of that other fateful October night in New York City, except this time I was alone and thrilled by this feeling of absolute freedom.
There's something to be said about experiencing Halloween in downtown New Orleans sober. Canal and Decatur were packed with costumed partygoers, dolled up and decked out in an eccentric mix of outfits. My newfound blondness and dramatic change in appearance gave me a heightened sense of confidence amidst the momentary blips of terror. Two boys followed me momentarily, calling out and asking why I was walking so fast. At another point, someone purposely reached out to hit me on the shoulder as I walked down the sidewalks of Decatur. I didn't cuss out at them, but the very idea that I could and totally get away with it felt liberating.
In the dark haze and smoke of the club, the packed bodies pressed all around me made me feel feverish. I took off my varsity jacket and wandered through the crowd. The reactions from my friends at the club amused me to no end. I would tap them on the shoulder, and their faces would contort in guarded bewilderment until a flash of recognition would light across their eyes. "SOPHELIA!! HOLY SHIT, YOUR HAIR! I TOTALLY DIDN'T RECOGNIZE YOU!"
I was there for maybe three hours. It felt shorter than that. It was fun, but as I came home and peeled off my guise, I came to realize something. There's an immeasurable thrill in stepping into another skin for one night and feeling the freedom to act unlike yourself. But I would have been just as happy hanging out with Spitfire, Asian Jesus, and him for the rest of the night, discussing our philosophies over soul food and sweet tea, in my boyishly short black hair and school sweatshirt, in my own skin.
We studied until 8 PM. Spitfire had been craving fried chicken for days, so we piled up in Asian Jesus's car and headed over to Raisin' Kanes on St. Charles. As we consumed our greased piles of soul food, the conversation somehow led to the topic that had left me fuming mad at him almost two weeks ago.
He'd already given me his spiel. Now his roommate Asian Jesus was trying to articulate why he hated hook-up culture. Spitfire and I listened, patiently, commenting and objecting here and there.
Spitfire and I are older than the boys. Only by one year in my case, and three years in hers. I understood their arguments, for I choose not to participate in the hook-up culture either.
I think you're the type to put your eggs in as few baskets as possible. But you'll put a lot of eggs in.
That's how a friend described me, and in many ways, it is true.
So, I agreed with Asian Jesus when he talked about his tendency to treat relationships with such seriousness and intensity, that the idea of casual engagement of heart and body for one night with no strings attached was impossible for him. But once again, I still felt a hollow apathy about hook-up culture -- in that, I really don't care if other people choose to hook-up. As long as people don't try to force me into their culture, I'm willing to accept theirs.
I tried explaining this to my mother a week ago, and her words were eerily echoed by Asian Jesus last night. Do people who engage in hook-up culture treat their relationships more lightly than others like me, him, and Asian Jesus who choose not to? What will happen if you end up dating someone who's been part of that culture?
Perhaps I am naive and obstinate, but I want to believe that whoever I choose to date will like me enough that his loyalty to me will speak for itself, regardless of how he may have behaved when he was single. Perhaps I don't feel that the ability to separate the emotional and the physical is mutually exclusive from the ability to be faithful.
But what do I know? I have been single all my life. I watch people around me make mistakes and learn from them. But it's been an objective, detached education.
After dinner, I went back to my house. Both my roommates were gone for the night. It was only 9 PM, and I'd been planning to stay-in and study, but suddenly I was overcome with an acute feeling of being very very lame.
I didn't have a fairy godmother. I barely even did my make-up, since I was worried about getting to the club before my classmates dispersed. I put on my blonde wig, tucked it under a bear-eared beanie, paired a varsity jacket with a band tee, and drove to Downtown in my rental Ford Charger. Afraid of the traffic around Frenchmen, I parked my car by the hospital and walked for half an hour to my destination.
It was a chilly night -- the coldest I've experienced since moving here. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked briskly down the glitzy Canal Street. The marquee lights from Saenger Theater reminded me of that other fateful October night in New York City, except this time I was alone and thrilled by this feeling of absolute freedom.
There's something to be said about experiencing Halloween in downtown New Orleans sober. Canal and Decatur were packed with costumed partygoers, dolled up and decked out in an eccentric mix of outfits. My newfound blondness and dramatic change in appearance gave me a heightened sense of confidence amidst the momentary blips of terror. Two boys followed me momentarily, calling out and asking why I was walking so fast. At another point, someone purposely reached out to hit me on the shoulder as I walked down the sidewalks of Decatur. I didn't cuss out at them, but the very idea that I could and totally get away with it felt liberating.
In the dark haze and smoke of the club, the packed bodies pressed all around me made me feel feverish. I took off my varsity jacket and wandered through the crowd. The reactions from my friends at the club amused me to no end. I would tap them on the shoulder, and their faces would contort in guarded bewilderment until a flash of recognition would light across their eyes. "SOPHELIA!! HOLY SHIT, YOUR HAIR! I TOTALLY DIDN'T RECOGNIZE YOU!"
I was there for maybe three hours. It felt shorter than that. It was fun, but as I came home and peeled off my guise, I came to realize something. There's an immeasurable thrill in stepping into another skin for one night and feeling the freedom to act unlike yourself. But I would have been just as happy hanging out with Spitfire, Asian Jesus, and him for the rest of the night, discussing our philosophies over soul food and sweet tea, in my boyishly short black hair and school sweatshirt, in my own skin.
January 25, 2011
fleeting
her allure lies not with her looks or her clothes, but with how the briefest flash of her smile can leave you blinded for hours.the questions:
how do you trap electricity in a bottle?
how do you catch a smile so that no one else can see it, so that it belongs to no one else but you?
i don't think you're attractive when i see you in photographs. but it's a different story when you're in motion. the beauty that can't be captured -- i think you're the rarest kind of all.
December 25, 2010
Endymion
Really, she thought, glancing at the magazine rack by the check-out line with a bottle of organic, non-fat, hormone-free milk and a bag of baby carrots she had managed to convince herself she would snack on instead of the leftover quarter of apple pie waiting on her kitchen countertop. I’m following two diets at a time.
At the peak of the pyramid of beauty were those glossed magazines, with Cover Girl puckering her ruby candy-coated lips, her skin unblemished and creamlike with a tint of strawberry in the cheeks, and the cloud of headlines like mindless speech bubbles chattering of “Score a Slammin’ Bod in 60 Days” and “25 Naked Truths About Guys’ Bodies” around Cover Girl’s head. Strata underneath were the scattered assortment of cosmetics, clothes, accessories, hair salon appointments, pedicures, manicures, and spa treatments. But at the base of the pyramid was the staple of which she had been bred and fed ever since she had been but a pigtailed toddler, peering into tulips in search of Thumbelina and her fairy prince. She knew the fairy tales by heart. The prince would enter on his white horse, riding in on the wingtips of such words as Fate and Destiny declaring eternal youth, eternal beauty, eternal love. How would the princess know her prince had come? Snow White never questioned whether the prince who had kissed her deathly lips was the One. Sleeping Beauty never questioned whether the prince who had slashed through the thorn hedges and slain the dragon was the One. Swept away on the white horse into the distant sunset implicit of a happily-ever-after – they just knew.
She knew it too then, that moment when she looked up and set eyes on him for the first time. It was something more than the way he carried himself like Michelangelo’s David, eyes agaze with a look of expectant confidence, set into a face chiseled from the finest marble framed by dark Grecian curls. It was more than the way she felt as if he had struck her in the chest with a crushing stone that left her gasping like a leaping fish.
She knew it then, that summer night when she waited for his shift to end and he took her to the ice cream parlor downtown where she ate all the toppings from his sundae and he ate her unfinished ice cream (she had suddenly become self-conscious of the calories) before leaning across the table to lick the sugar from her lips. She knew it then, the time they wore matching leather jackets to the opening night of Spring Awakening at the performing arts center and he held her hand through the show as she pretended not to cry and he pretended not to notice the wet patches where her face had been pressed against his sleeve. She knew it then, the first time he cooked for her at his apartment and he served her lemon-herb salmon filets and rosemary potatoes with red wine and poached pears (taking her diet all into account) and afterwards she reluctantly agreed to watch the horror films he loved so much and spent the rest of the evening with her eyes shut clutching his arm in fright. (She soon had the sneaking suspicion that his love for horror had more to do with her frightened antics than the blood and gore on the television screen). She knew it then, that same night when she couldn’t sleep with all the images of dismembered body parts rattling in her head and how he cradled her in his arms on the couch until they were both lulled to sleep by the rhythmic way their breaths drew in and out in unison like the tide.
She knew.
She knew it then, as they lay under the stars inventing their own constellations and he pointed into the sky and said, There’s you and me – like Cepheus and Cassiopeia, like Perseus and Andromeda, like Fate and Eternity. She knew it then, when before his two-week trip he bought her an enormous teddy bear spritzed with his favorite cologne and how she would breathe in the scent of him late at night, shivering with the craving emptiness of an addict in withdrawal. She knew it then, when he blindfolded her on her birthday and all she could feel was his hand leading hers, and when he finally undid her blindfold she saw him kneeling before her on one knee. She knew it then, the moment her three-letter answer left her lips and transformed his face into a Cheshire smile of bliss as he lifted her into the air towards the sunset and let her feel as if she could fly forever.
No.
She thought she knew.
She knew it then, when the years passed and the layers of the pyramid began to crumble to ruins. She knew it then, when the hairdresser began recommending dyes to conceal her graying roots. She knew it then, when the lines began to settle into her face and neck, eroding from etches to crevasses in her aging skin. She knew it then, when she stood next to him in front of the bathroom mirror and saw the same, proud, timeless, statuesque face she had first seen on him so many years ago, looking decades younger than her graying visage.
She knew it then, when they sat together on the couch watching another film without roaring gun fights or blood-spurting murders (lest they trigger palpitations in her heart) and she fell asleep beside him long before the movie ended and the credits began to roll. She knew it then, when she no longer wore her leather jacket (because nobody at her age wore leather with the exception of clogs and handbags) when he took her to the performing arts center and she heard whispers of “cougar” and “cradle robber” behind her back and she pretended not to crumple like a tissue as the lights began to dim. She knew it then, when she was bedridden after surgery and he spoon-fed her strawberry ice cream with each bite powdered with all of her favorite toppings as if she were the child among them.
She knew it then, as she lay awake beside his sleeping form, wondering if he dreamt of that cute, twenty-something waitress who had commented how gentlemanlike it was of him to take his mother out for dinner, or that pretty saleswoman whose eye had lingered on him seconds longer than what would be deemed professionally appropriate.
She knew it then, when the pent-up misery inevitably unleashed itself, clawing at his timeless skin and pounding at his immortal bones. She said nothing when he packed his bags wordlessly and left, to wander for another eternity.
She knew it then, when she could no longer look upon his ageless beauty without reminder of what she had once been.
--------------------------
Merry Christmas, everyone. Yes, a little depressing -- but that's my style.
At the peak of the pyramid of beauty were those glossed magazines, with Cover Girl puckering her ruby candy-coated lips, her skin unblemished and creamlike with a tint of strawberry in the cheeks, and the cloud of headlines like mindless speech bubbles chattering of “Score a Slammin’ Bod in 60 Days” and “25 Naked Truths About Guys’ Bodies” around Cover Girl’s head. Strata underneath were the scattered assortment of cosmetics, clothes, accessories, hair salon appointments, pedicures, manicures, and spa treatments. But at the base of the pyramid was the staple of which she had been bred and fed ever since she had been but a pigtailed toddler, peering into tulips in search of Thumbelina and her fairy prince. She knew the fairy tales by heart. The prince would enter on his white horse, riding in on the wingtips of such words as Fate and Destiny declaring eternal youth, eternal beauty, eternal love. How would the princess know her prince had come? Snow White never questioned whether the prince who had kissed her deathly lips was the One. Sleeping Beauty never questioned whether the prince who had slashed through the thorn hedges and slain the dragon was the One. Swept away on the white horse into the distant sunset implicit of a happily-ever-after – they just knew.
She knew it too then, that moment when she looked up and set eyes on him for the first time. It was something more than the way he carried himself like Michelangelo’s David, eyes agaze with a look of expectant confidence, set into a face chiseled from the finest marble framed by dark Grecian curls. It was more than the way she felt as if he had struck her in the chest with a crushing stone that left her gasping like a leaping fish.
She knew it then, that summer night when she waited for his shift to end and he took her to the ice cream parlor downtown where she ate all the toppings from his sundae and he ate her unfinished ice cream (she had suddenly become self-conscious of the calories) before leaning across the table to lick the sugar from her lips. She knew it then, the time they wore matching leather jackets to the opening night of Spring Awakening at the performing arts center and he held her hand through the show as she pretended not to cry and he pretended not to notice the wet patches where her face had been pressed against his sleeve. She knew it then, the first time he cooked for her at his apartment and he served her lemon-herb salmon filets and rosemary potatoes with red wine and poached pears (taking her diet all into account) and afterwards she reluctantly agreed to watch the horror films he loved so much and spent the rest of the evening with her eyes shut clutching his arm in fright. (She soon had the sneaking suspicion that his love for horror had more to do with her frightened antics than the blood and gore on the television screen). She knew it then, that same night when she couldn’t sleep with all the images of dismembered body parts rattling in her head and how he cradled her in his arms on the couch until they were both lulled to sleep by the rhythmic way their breaths drew in and out in unison like the tide.
She knew.
She knew it then, as they lay under the stars inventing their own constellations and he pointed into the sky and said, There’s you and me – like Cepheus and Cassiopeia, like Perseus and Andromeda, like Fate and Eternity. She knew it then, when before his two-week trip he bought her an enormous teddy bear spritzed with his favorite cologne and how she would breathe in the scent of him late at night, shivering with the craving emptiness of an addict in withdrawal. She knew it then, when he blindfolded her on her birthday and all she could feel was his hand leading hers, and when he finally undid her blindfold she saw him kneeling before her on one knee. She knew it then, the moment her three-letter answer left her lips and transformed his face into a Cheshire smile of bliss as he lifted her into the air towards the sunset and let her feel as if she could fly forever.
No.
She thought she knew.
She knew it then, when the years passed and the layers of the pyramid began to crumble to ruins. She knew it then, when the hairdresser began recommending dyes to conceal her graying roots. She knew it then, when the lines began to settle into her face and neck, eroding from etches to crevasses in her aging skin. She knew it then, when she stood next to him in front of the bathroom mirror and saw the same, proud, timeless, statuesque face she had first seen on him so many years ago, looking decades younger than her graying visage.
She knew it then, when they sat together on the couch watching another film without roaring gun fights or blood-spurting murders (lest they trigger palpitations in her heart) and she fell asleep beside him long before the movie ended and the credits began to roll. She knew it then, when she no longer wore her leather jacket (because nobody at her age wore leather with the exception of clogs and handbags) when he took her to the performing arts center and she heard whispers of “cougar” and “cradle robber” behind her back and she pretended not to crumple like a tissue as the lights began to dim. She knew it then, when she was bedridden after surgery and he spoon-fed her strawberry ice cream with each bite powdered with all of her favorite toppings as if she were the child among them.
She knew it then, as she lay awake beside his sleeping form, wondering if he dreamt of that cute, twenty-something waitress who had commented how gentlemanlike it was of him to take his mother out for dinner, or that pretty saleswoman whose eye had lingered on him seconds longer than what would be deemed professionally appropriate.
She knew it then, when the pent-up misery inevitably unleashed itself, clawing at his timeless skin and pounding at his immortal bones. She said nothing when he packed his bags wordlessly and left, to wander for another eternity.
She knew it then, when she could no longer look upon his ageless beauty without reminder of what she had once been.
--------------------------
Merry Christmas, everyone. Yes, a little depressing -- but that's my style.
December 22, 2010
Pretty Ugly
I already knew what kind of reaction I was going to get when I returned home -- generally speaking, anyways. My hair had been short and bobbed for nearly five years that many people couldn't remember the last time -- or any time -- that they had seen me with hair long enough to be swept up in a ponytail.
What I didn't expect was when I showed up to my neighbors' dinner party the night I landed in California and was showered in a flurry of compliments from the other mothers there about how beautiful and ladylike I had become, and how I look better with longer hair and should not cut my hair short again anytime soon.
I never know what to think in these situations, because the main thought zipping through my head is, "Was I really ugly back then?"
In the car yesterday, my mother told me that when she visited her in-laws in Taipei over Thanksgiving Break, my grandmother told her that I had completely changed and looked so pretty when I visited Taipei two summers ago. My mom said she laughed and joked, "Are you saying that she was an ugly child?"
I probably was. That is to say, I'd never had any illusion that I was beautiful. Before I got braces, my lower teeth were a crooked mess, while my upper incisors were noticeably larger than the rest of the teeth in the row. I don't have double-eyelids -- considered more beautiful than single-eyelids in Asian cultures. I refused to let my hair down as a kid, always preferring to tie it up and out of the way for when I played sports. As a result of all the soccer and tennis I played in my youth, I have been tanned as long as I can remember and have never had the snowy white skin of a classically beautiful Asian girl.
As far as that's gone, I still haven't changed much. My teeth are straight now, but my single-eyelids remain. Perhaps I might be less tan than before, now that I play much less outdoors than I did in the past, but undoubtedly my skin tone will still garner awkward remarks if I make another trip to Taiwan. And as I was still sporting a bob when I visited my grandparents two summers ago, hair likely has nothing to do with it.
Penelope Cruz once said, "I don’t think I am beautiful. I can look good and I can look ugly." The first time I heard that quote, I thought -- "Pshhh, easy for you to say." But at where I am now in life, Penelope Cruz couldn't have said it better.
What I didn't expect was when I showed up to my neighbors' dinner party the night I landed in California and was showered in a flurry of compliments from the other mothers there about how beautiful and ladylike I had become, and how I look better with longer hair and should not cut my hair short again anytime soon.
I never know what to think in these situations, because the main thought zipping through my head is, "Was I really ugly back then?"
In the car yesterday, my mother told me that when she visited her in-laws in Taipei over Thanksgiving Break, my grandmother told her that I had completely changed and looked so pretty when I visited Taipei two summers ago. My mom said she laughed and joked, "Are you saying that she was an ugly child?"
I probably was. That is to say, I'd never had any illusion that I was beautiful. Before I got braces, my lower teeth were a crooked mess, while my upper incisors were noticeably larger than the rest of the teeth in the row. I don't have double-eyelids -- considered more beautiful than single-eyelids in Asian cultures. I refused to let my hair down as a kid, always preferring to tie it up and out of the way for when I played sports. As a result of all the soccer and tennis I played in my youth, I have been tanned as long as I can remember and have never had the snowy white skin of a classically beautiful Asian girl.
As far as that's gone, I still haven't changed much. My teeth are straight now, but my single-eyelids remain. Perhaps I might be less tan than before, now that I play much less outdoors than I did in the past, but undoubtedly my skin tone will still garner awkward remarks if I make another trip to Taiwan. And as I was still sporting a bob when I visited my grandparents two summers ago, hair likely has nothing to do with it.
Penelope Cruz once said, "I don’t think I am beautiful. I can look good and I can look ugly." The first time I heard that quote, I thought -- "Pshhh, easy for you to say." But at where I am now in life, Penelope Cruz couldn't have said it better.
September 3, 2010
Muse
it's impossible to describe what you are to me, exactly.
the first time i saw you, i thought you were what i thought i wanted to be. tough. badass. charismatic. gorgeous. i wanted that power. the first time i saw you, i couldn't look away.
yet the more i looked, the more i realized we aren't so different after all. i used to dislike my eyes -- not those coveted double eyelids like those doe-eyed starlets -- until i realized that we have the same cat eyes, with the illusion of eyeliner in the corners. that was the first time i decided i liked my eyes.
i used to love you the way a child loves the hero, in admiration and in envy. i'd watch you prowl across the stage as the thousand-eyed audience remained transfixed to your every move. i'd watch you and remember all those times when i sat in front of the piano in the recital hall, trembling as i'd pray that my fingers wouldn't slip in their own sweat. i wanted to be the extrovert instead of the introvert, the show stopper instead of the wallflower, the light instead of the shadow.
and yet, i saw more and more of myself in you each time. it's not just the eyes. when i saw you responding quietly, awkwardly, reluctantly to their probing questions about your love life, i saw my socially awkward self, distant and guarded to a fault. when i saw you joke around and banter playfully with your friends, i saw my private self, creating silly nicknames for close friends and inventing animated impromptu stories, complete with all the absurdities of a soap opera. i saw the two halves of my personality co-existing in another person.
we both dislike being touched. if we ever dated, we would never hold hands in public. we both dislike talking about our personal matters in public. we are both private people.
your face is structured in a way that looks naturally intimidating. you once complained that when you don't smile, people mistaken you for being in a bad mood. it turns out that i am the same. friends tell me they were initially intimidated by me when we first met, whether from my gladiator sandals and chained earrings or my quietness around strangers -- a symptom of my shyness that is often misinterpreted as coldness.
when i look at myself now, it's different from what i saw before i ever learned of you. i thought i was meek, ugly, dull, two-faced, stunted. it's bizarre when i see so many reflections of myself in someone i consider a hundred times more beautiful than anyone else in the world. i'm tough. i'm badass. i'm charismatic in my own way. maybe not gorgeous, but at least with those eyes of yours that everybody loves -- i can look into the mirror and i see you looking right back at me.
the first time i saw you, i thought you were what i thought i wanted to be. tough. badass. charismatic. gorgeous. i wanted that power. the first time i saw you, i couldn't look away.
yet the more i looked, the more i realized we aren't so different after all. i used to dislike my eyes -- not those coveted double eyelids like those doe-eyed starlets -- until i realized that we have the same cat eyes, with the illusion of eyeliner in the corners. that was the first time i decided i liked my eyes.
i used to love you the way a child loves the hero, in admiration and in envy. i'd watch you prowl across the stage as the thousand-eyed audience remained transfixed to your every move. i'd watch you and remember all those times when i sat in front of the piano in the recital hall, trembling as i'd pray that my fingers wouldn't slip in their own sweat. i wanted to be the extrovert instead of the introvert, the show stopper instead of the wallflower, the light instead of the shadow.
and yet, i saw more and more of myself in you each time. it's not just the eyes. when i saw you responding quietly, awkwardly, reluctantly to their probing questions about your love life, i saw my socially awkward self, distant and guarded to a fault. when i saw you joke around and banter playfully with your friends, i saw my private self, creating silly nicknames for close friends and inventing animated impromptu stories, complete with all the absurdities of a soap opera. i saw the two halves of my personality co-existing in another person.
we both dislike being touched. if we ever dated, we would never hold hands in public. we both dislike talking about our personal matters in public. we are both private people.
your face is structured in a way that looks naturally intimidating. you once complained that when you don't smile, people mistaken you for being in a bad mood. it turns out that i am the same. friends tell me they were initially intimidated by me when we first met, whether from my gladiator sandals and chained earrings or my quietness around strangers -- a symptom of my shyness that is often misinterpreted as coldness.
when i look at myself now, it's different from what i saw before i ever learned of you. i thought i was meek, ugly, dull, two-faced, stunted. it's bizarre when i see so many reflections of myself in someone i consider a hundred times more beautiful than anyone else in the world. i'm tough. i'm badass. i'm charismatic in my own way. maybe not gorgeous, but at least with those eyes of yours that everybody loves -- i can look into the mirror and i see you looking right back at me.
July 3, 2009
Snapshot 2 - Beauty
I took studio pictures today. I wore three outfits -- a yellow gown, a red mini-dress, and a Gothic Lolita blouse and skirt; and afterwards, my relatives took me around the city. Here are the lessons of the day:
- I prefer dark make-up. While the girl was putting on my make-up, I was so tempted to just grab the eyeliner and black eyeshadow and give myself raccoon eyes.
- I look REALLY strange with long hair. I refused to let the make-up/hair stylist add any of extra hair to my very short hair for the first dress, but as I was changing for the second dress, the seamstress girl convinced me to try it out. The interesting thing is, my aunt -- who says I look completely different now because of my short hair -- says I looked much more familiar to her when I had long hair. But as for me, I couldn't even recognize myself in the mirror. I was actually considering growing my hair out a few months ago -- but today's experience has effectively convinced me that I will continue chopping my hair every month until further notice.
- Posture is an art. The photographer was a kickass chick who really knows how to get somebody to smile a real smile. Plus, when she demonstrated the poses she wanted, I could't help but think she could have been a supermodel. Now, every time I lean against something or sit, I am ridiculously self-conscious. Do I tilt my shoulders this way, or do I jut my chin out this way so I don't look like I have a double chin? You see, this is the kind of useful thing they should teach you in school that everyone needs to know.
- Working in a studio would be awesome. Dressing someone up; fixing up their make-up and hair; picking out accessories from a massive sparkling shelf of tiaras, hats, and jewelry; designing the photo backdrops and settings; taking fashion photography; photoshopping and editing the pictures -- Rogue, this sounds like your type of job.
- There is much eyecandy to be seen here. Instead of Guitar Hero, a similar game that's popular here is one that uses a drum set instead. Unlike the Rock Band/Guitar Hero IV drum set, this one is pretty much a real drum set -- and so when someone is playing it in the arcade, you actually hear the cymbals and drums. I didn't get to play and make a fool out of myself -- because there were a group of guys crowded around the game challenging each other at the expert level. Yeah, I didn't really see their faces because they were all facing the screen, but their clothing tastes were impeccble, their hair was styled punkish but not emo, and they were tall. There needs to be some sort of diffusion so that more of these kind of people end up where I live... or actually, at Duke.
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