the first step is always the hardest and for the first time in my life, i was actually nervous about cutting my hair. normally, i can just think about colouring it and the next thing i know, i come to covered in vaseline, surrounded by latex (gloves) and staring at a stranger in my bed. i really should stop sleeping next to mirrors.
as part of resolution #15, i decided that a self-image overhaul is in order. i scoped out possibilities and planned to go fun and sexy with the hair. i brought a picture to the first gay hairdresser i found that had been doing hair for a long time (22 years, apparently). i ended up with almost exactly what i asked for. i liked it, for a day or two.
to be honest, i’m terrified to wash it, in case i can’t make it look the same. i mean, there were brushes and blowdryers and flat irons used to create a hairstyle that was supposed to be ‘finger tossable bed head.’ and so, what if i truly end up looking like i just got out of bed in a truly unsexy way?
and why do i care so much about being sexy? i appreciated the fact, long ago, that i was not sexy to anyone other than pedophiles. i knew i could be cute. i could even handle the person i was regularly sleeping with calling me beautiful – they’re biased and i apparently do look good on my knees. but why now? all of the sudden?
is it because i’ve stopped feeling the appeal that i always thought i had, but never called sexy? i likened it with something called slutty – but it was an “edgy fuck you i’m a bitch accept it if i tell you to and yes i’m skinny you have a problem with that? oh wait i don’t care” kind of thing. the further dropping of weight and investment in breasts only chased the dragon.
the whole lifestyle, in fact, was what got me off, on me. what made me think, occasionally, until i brought myself to planet earth, that some where, some one was jerking off, thinking of me because they’d seen me on the bus, or possibly at the coffee shop. yes, i could be that grandiose and self-obsessed. in fact, when not excited by that notion, i was paranoid of it.
i used to party not because it was necessarily fun, but because inflicting destruction towards myself was tickled me. i tried to become an addict, i really did. i knew and thought and heard statistics in my head about how some large percentage of people got addicted to blow the first time they tried it. heroin? you’re most certain to jones for the next day. and with each line, i only grew more disappointed in my body’s lack of regard for my wishes. i wanted to feel the bugs crawling. i wanted to have the dark circles that only come from spending all of your rent on dust. i still get an itch, but it’s not because i’m an addict, recovered or not. it’s because i miss killing myself slowly and ripping down the walls and tearing up my own seams.
i saw ribs and thought that i should display them. i sniffed and explained why i suffered from post-nasal drip. my mouth tasted like vomit, let me kiss you. “look at how weak i am. i need saving. fuck you, get away from me! this is my life, stop trying to control me. why won’t you help me, can’t you see i’m falling apart?”
i don’t think i ever really knew what the definition of sexy was.
sexy to me, now is: smudged eye makeup; unstyled hair; a racer back tank top and low rise panties; the tattoo on my hip bone and the curve of my lower back; a perfect, arched eyebrow; a half smile; the feeling of his hands on my neck, massaging my headache away; his voice on the phone, just calling to say hey. (the rhyming, that is not sexy. and completely unintentional.)
these are my everyday possibilities, but still, i’m not sexy.
