Day 61, Be Brave Project; Standards and Saccharine Sentiments

Just looked at the opening sentence of my previous entry, and found that it made me want to beat my head with a shoe whilst vomiting abundantly, due to the excess of saccharine. Not the response I was hoping for or expecting.

"I have come to believe that working towards a goal is the only satisfying way to lead a life," or some such stuff. Well, it's sort of true--the most satisfying time I've spent since I quit drinking was when I was working on the screenplay adaptation. It's true and yet it sounds as if I'm some Oprah-watching, capri-wearing, cinnabun-munching housefrau who thinks her every little discovery is hers exclusively, yet fascinating to the rest of the world.

But. . .isn't that sort of self-absorption what a blog is about? Particularly a blog that is, however much I might chafe under this description, about self-improvement?

Urgh, well. . .urgh. . .yes. And my fear of being a frau really is nothing more than a form of sexism seasoned with envy that I have picked up from my gay male friends: They have a detestation of their married up/babied up/don't give a crap about their weight female co-workers so vehement that it clearly contains an enormous dollop of envy. The fat seems to bother them more than the smuggery (which is the part that gets me), but the result is the same and results in my gay friends coming out with this opinion: Big Fat Married Women are Like Children.

They get to stuff anything in their mouths at any time, look ghastly, and still have the expectation (How dare they think it's a RIGHT, my friend Will once asked) of being admired by their femininity and loved by their husbands. Will sat weeping in a darkened room the day before he turned 30, and when I tried to console him he whipped around dramatically--just like he was Crawford and I'd waved some metal hangers at him--to tell me, "For a gay man, 30 is the end. The end of dating as I've known it." And sadly, as Will's swimmer's build turned more solid from maturity and years of office work, it did turn out that the men no longer chased him as they had. This creates bitterness.

My gay friends starve themselves with incredibly expensive high protein diets. They are obsessive about gym memberships. They always know of a tooth-whitening deal, or of a discount on cashmere. There are very, very strong opinions on the wearing of flip-flops for men over 25. There is still, amazingly, even now the sort of self-loathing that societal disapproval can engender: A phrase popular after a particularly 'gay' sentiment has been expressed is, "That is why they hate us."

So my gay friends, many of them, loathe fat married women. Slender well-dressed women they can tolerate, because they're used to losing men to high-maintenance hotties. And the years of their endless bitching bitching bitching seems to have sunk into my head as well. Age if you must--Judy did, horribly and heartbreakingly, squandering love and talent along the way--but don't get fat. Or smug.

So that is why the 'living for your goals' statement clearly kicked something off in me--I do believe it. I do. But there's some part of me that also believes that if I start spouting such conventional bits of (irony free) wisdom, I'll suddenly start wearing Liz Clairborne clothing and socks knit out of shedded cat fur.

I want to be sober, but the life of the party. I want to be slender, but eat my Lindt chocolate. I want to find a relationship, but one where I cannot get hurt. I want I want I want. . .well, I want to remember the 'goals' comment and to live by it.

But I also am getting my teeth whitened today. And wearing fabulous shoes on my way there.