I’ve been seeing a lot of press for Georgia Clark’s “The Regulars” (adding it to my list) and she has written a bunch of articles on feminisim and beauty and etc, plus blog tours. I just read one over at annalisebooks.wordpress.com in which she talks about her perception of beauty as a child, and it got me thinking about my own perceptions at that time.
I thought I was hideous. I literally thought I was that bad. I drew a self-portrait once in the back of a book in case it got lost, so people would know who to return it to (even though I did not live in a small town where everyone knew each other and more importantly, knew who the ugly kid was). The picture had long hair, big goggly eyes (some fuckstick in primary/elementary school actually called them goggle eyes to my 6 year old face FUCK YOU GUY), a probable mouth and enormous bags under the eyes.
My grandmother had dark skin under her eyes, maybe she was always tired, maybe it’s ’cause she was european and missing the art and weed from her native Holland, maybe it was a medical thing. Or whatever. I thought the skin under my eyes was just as noticeable (I probably was tired because I used to stay up ’til all hours reading) and I thought it was awful. Looking at my 2nd grade school picture now, the skin under my eyes was a bit pronounced and my eyes are excited (FUCK YOU GUY), but my slow-roll-into-40ish self thinks I look like a cute little school kid with the long hair and missing choppers and uniform collar.
Why would I think I look so awful?
Ads. Tv. Jerks, obvs. If course, it all gets worse as we get older where there are more ads, more tv, and more jerks. Maybe there would be less jerks if there were less ads. Maybe jerks are universal. Fuck you jerks.