Mutual Hand Jobs

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Projecting Bad-assery or Managing Your Dressing Habits

Listening to: At Last: Can’t Touch This – MC Hammer (heck yeah…)

Mood: Irritated with Dude on the other end of my ball and chain

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I don’t talk all that much. No seriously.  I’m the quiet one taking it all in and…scheming. I’m perfectly happy like that. Unless I’ve been drinking, then all bets are off and I am tons of fun. I have times when I just have nothing to blog about, and then I have times when it seems like stuff just pours out of my mind via my fingers on a constant basis.  Everything is funny, and everything needs to be expressed.  I’m in one of those times right now, so you might as well enjoy it – I will lapse into radio silence sooner or later.

So the husband and I have been having negotiations as of late as to what is kosher for me to be wearing. For some reason, this is extraordinarily important to him. Before we left the states, anything and everything that could remotely be construed as sexy was either given away or summarily put in storage at my mom’s house. Saris and salwars have been embargoed except for special party situations, which we will not find ourselves in until we make some friends.  I have also been banned from walking around looking like a boy. Whatever. Look baby, I don’t care how many times the 80’s call and request their tee shirts back. They can pry them out of my cold dead fingers in 80 years or so. We’ve uneasily settled on Indian tops and non-tight jeans which is a good thing for me. Since I’ve lost weight, I can’t seem to find any tight jeans in my closet anyhow. This is indeed something amazing for me.

There are times when I put down my foot and wear what I think it appropriate for the situation I find myself it. Let me explain. I am a Guns and Roses Freak. I love the music, the attitude, and my black Appetite for Destruction teeshirts. Certain activities here elicit a need to project an image that I am best left alone and not messed with. Wearing a black teeshirt with smoking skulls certainly fits the bill here. Taxis are a good example, walking next to construction guys another. I’ve found that when I dress a certain way, people just leave me alone because who really wants to mess with the crazy firangi (foreign) girl wearing a scary teeshirt. Wearing local clothes just invites too much innocent curiosity which at times has turned into cat calling and interest I just don’t want. So yes. The teeshirts stay.

I think it’s important for a woman who is functioning on her own to be aware of how she dresses. I’m in no way saying that how a woman dresses excuses the way a man behaves – that’ s just bull shit. What I’m saying is that if you don’t want to be messed with, a slightly more edgy look is better than a helpless feminine one.  I don’t know if I would ever walk down the street in a sari into the village next door to us, even with my husband right next to me. It just seems to be borrowing trouble. I don’t need the cab/auto drivers to look at me like a woman. I need them to leave me the hell alone and get me where I want to go. I can understand that my husband wants to see me as a girl and it will be important if we are hanging around with people he deems important to look a certain way. Even though every cell in my body rebels against doing something because society expects it, I am also a realist in that you have to take your spouse’s wants and needs into account too. I’ve decided that the tee shirts stay, because they definitely have a function too.

Becky

Wah wah wah Daddy Issues Blah Blah Blah

It may come as a surprise to you, or it may be obvious, but when I have too much time to myself, I tend to get into some crazy mental space that overanalyzes whatever is bothering me at the moment.  I’ve always been fascinated by dreams and they are no exemption to my analysis.  For example, my love affair of the past 5 years with Guns N Roses started with a very hot dream I had about Axl Rose.  When my dreams take a darker turn than a tryst with a rock star, it tends to stick with me for a long, long time.

A few days back,  I had a dream in which my husband left me for my own good (?!) and then my father told me in the cruelest way possible he had no interest in having anything to do with me at all.  If you know anything about me at all, I just don’t cry. I may if someone dies, but otherwise, this well is dry. I do believe I was crying for the entire dream. I was overwhelmed at the calloused nature of people I cared about.

What has really gotten into my head is not what happened in the dream itself, but why in the world I’m still stuck on the daddy issues. It also irritates me to no end that these thoughts tend to come up out of nowhere and sucker punch me. I went to bed that night happy and in no way thinking about my father. Mmm… Axl. Sorry.

 I’m 30 years old. My parents divorced when I was 15 and I haven’t had much to do with my dad, or him with me, since. 15 years ago people.   I would like to think that I’m a well adjusted grown up. The more I get to thinking about people’s issues (and let me tell you, everyone has at least one), the more I realize that they never go away. They sit quietly in the back of your head, driving certain behaviors and habits and just waiting to remind you that somehow, you are messed up in the head.  I have been trying my entire life to process those few years and just move the heck on already, but I never seem to eradicate it all together.

Ah well. It does seem to have wormed it’s way into who I am, so I can’t say I need to get rid of these issues altogether. I just wish we could stop with the sucker punching.

Becky

Time to Say Goodbye

So life has taken me in a different direction and I've moved with my family to India. I'm using a different blog to keep track of my experiences. If you want to hear about India, go here and check it out:
http://followingthemasala.blogspot.com/

I won't be posting here until I return to the states in a few years.
All the best,
Becky

The Shit that Just Wouldn't Fit

Listening to: Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions

Mood: Calm

The G family is moving to India. There. I’ve told you, just like I’ve told everyone I’ve come across in the last few weeks, including random store clerks. I just can’t seem to stop telling random people that my family is moving almost exactly half way around the world. That’s not what I wanted to talk about today though. If you want more info on this, see my Masala blog here.

What has caught my attention for the moment is shit that just will not fit.  Part of the moving process is weeding through my closet and my almost endless supply of black Guns N Roses tee shirts. India, you’re on notice. I’m a GNR freak and I am bringing every last one of those tees. Ahem. Anyhow.  Mother nature has seen fit to curse me with freakin ginormous boobs. Which I hate. It makes it very difficult for me to find clothes that fit well. My clothes either fit my boobs and are too large everywhere else, or fit my body and look absurdly small across my chest.

So I spent most of last weekend trying on clothes and then tossing them in the give-away pile.  The husband has complained that I look like I’m trying to be a boy in my black tees and cargo shorts, but honey, when you have what I have to work with, it’s easier and less awkward to wear looser stuff. I’m slowly trying to get more into the girly thing with skirts and lower cut shirts. I ended up getting rid of almost half my wardrobe, most of which was shit that just wouldn't fit. What I can’t quite figure out is how I ended up with so much stuff like that.  I think I need to be more careful when I shop.

Becky

Living with Hairy little Beasties

I have come to the conclusion lately that we are living with some hairy little beasties. No, no, no. The G house has not adopted any adorable dogs, cats, hamsters, etc. We do have a couple of beta fish, but they don’t have hair, and well, just never mind about that.  I’m talking about my two daughters. At our house, the *only* possibility for girls to look attractive is to have long hair. This opinion comes straight from my daughters, not me. So no one ever, ever wants a haircut. That combined with the fact that I shed like a God damn golden retriever has me racing around like a maniac with my Swiffer.  By the way, Swiffer, I love you. You do so much more than a broom ever could with hair and dust. (Yes, that was an unpaid plug there unless Swiffer decides to throw some love my way, which is vastly unlikely.)

Mr. G originated in India. As you can imagine, he’s a black haired man. His kids, accordingly, are half Indian. They also have lovely, thick, dark brown hair. It looks decidedly less lovely on the floor and the furniture. My hair on the other hand is blonde and doesn’t show up on anything but the black Guns and Roses tee shirts that I am overly fond of wearing. So the only person that is really bothered by my hair is me when it makes its way down the back or onto the arms of one of my shirts.  God I hate that phantom hair that you feel but can’t find when you get so irritated you stop whatever you’re doing to find it and throw it away. I never imagined that I’d spend so much time cleaning up hair after so many people. Perhaps it’s because I never counted on having two daughters (I couldn’t tell you why I thought that).  I just never imagined that I would find SO much hair around our house. Especially now that my older daughter is brushing her own hair.  Ah well, back to the swiffer!

Becky

The Day Creativity Died

Listening to: The beautifully haunting wail of Axl and Slash together.


Ladies and gentlemen, I have a sad announcement to make. Creativity has died. “What? Fooey on you.” you say? Let me explain. I was reading Food and Wine magazine today (because I am all about the food) and noticed that they were endorsing something called a spoonula. Eh, what? What the hell is a spoonula? So glad you wondered. A spoonula is a rubber/silicone spatula in the shape of a spoon.

When did this meshing of words become such a big phenomenon? I kind of rolled my eyes at Brangelina, because couples can be sort of excused for doing gag worthy stuff like this when they’re in love, but I draw the line at spork because it has pop culture cred. Seriously. Spoonula.

Have we lost all sight of creativity that we can’t think of individual names and have resorted to smashing words together to create new words that really aren’t all that cute? Sarah Palin, I may have to lay the blame at you and the nut jobs that took “refudiate” seriously. This is part of the joy of inventing something fabulous. You can give it a fabulous name too. Recycling an old incarnation name of the product and mashing it with another old name is just lame.


Unfortunately, the spoonula isn’t even all that great of an invention. It’s a spatula with scrapers on both edges. Eh…..why did it take so long to figure out that this would be a fabulous idea? Picture it. Some guy sitting in a lab being paid to think up awesome ideas. “I got one, I got one. What if we put scraping edges on both sides!” And Alice Cooper is left slapping his head about why he didn’t come up with this one either.

Creativity folks, has left the building.

Becky