What Not to Wear II

Most of the time when I'm walking around campus I'm fairly oblivious to my surroundings. I'm running through my next lecture or regretting things said in my last one or steeling myself for a committee meeting or wondering if it's too early to go home and go to bed. But every once in awhile I come out of my head and notice what the undergrads are wearing.

With the guys, nothing ever changes. The black guys wear impossibly huge tee shirts and immensely oversized shorts buckled below their butt cheeks so they have to walk like penguins. Most of the white guys wear nondescript loose-cut jeans and baseball caps. Only the white guys with multiple piercings and tattoos seem to have evolving fashion sensibilities. They used to sport skateboarder-inspired baggy cargo pants; now they wear skinny jeans turned up to showcase the latest stud or ink.

The tides of female undergrad fashions, in contrast, ebb and flow with regularity. For awhile it was men's boxer shorts--coming into the classroom was like crashing a slumber party. Long long ago, when I first began teaching, big bright bows perched atop the vast majority of female heads. A large lecture hall resembled a butterfly atrium.

The latest female fashion craze on campus consists of Ugg boots, bare legs, and athletic shorts (the cotton kind with white piping around the bottom). On Friday, as I watched a number of young women dressed in various versions of this extraordinary outfit, I contemplated ways to explain to them the concept of winter footwear and and to point them toward the clothing that should accompany it.

But on Saturday 14-year-old Hugh and I went to the Mardi Gras parade downtown. It was unusually cold for Baton Rouge, with an icy wind whipping off the river. I had on a coat, scarf, hat, gloves,and boots, but still had to jump around to keep warm. Luckily the folks next to us had one of those nifty coolers that doubles as a portable stereo, and they were playing classic Mardi Gras tunes. So I'm kinda stomping to the beat, waiting for the parade, and I look up and there's Hugh, watching me and laughing. When I asked him what he was laughing at, he replied, "A bundled-up old lady, bopping up and down."

A bundled-up old lady, bopping up and down.

So much for serving as campus fashion consultant.

Who Dat?

It's Carnival season here in south Louisiana. Three Mardi Gras parades in Baton Rouge today and of course several in and around New Orleans--all building up to the frenzy of next weekend and the final explosion on Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras Day itself. But this year, even Mardi Gras has been swallowed up by a region-wide celebration of breath-taking, mind-boggling intensity: tomorrow, as any sentient American knows, the New Orleans Saints play the Indianapolis Colts in the Superbowl.

I don't do football. I don't get football. But I'll join the party. A party's a party. But this party--this party crosses racial and class divides and in south Louisiana, that's extraordinary.

Still, it's football. I didn't grow up with football. My high school didn't have a football team. My college didn't have a football team. My dad didn't follow football. My brothers didn't play football. They didn't watch football, at least not when they were kids (tho', sadly, they caught the virus in adulthood).

And football is so unelegant, so just plain ugly. Keith says I don't see the beauty of football because I don't understand it. I disagree. I don't really understand soccer (football, actually, at least to the rest of the world), but there's a beauty to the game. I see that. I'm a Chicago Cubs fan, but I'm not one of those baseball academics who explores the mathematics of the game. I just think a hotdog and a beer in Wrigley Field on a spring day is a transcendental experience. And I see the beauty in the game, even if I don't grasp the math. Tennis. I still don't get what it means to break the serve, but an elegant volley is an elegant volley. I get that.

Football. Guy throws oddly shaped ball. Bunch of guys make a big guy pile. Repeat.

But. . .

Those guys do wear really lovely form-fitting uniform bottoms that show off a finely-honed male ass to great advantage--unlike all other athletic uniforms for men. While women's sports apparel gets ever skimpier, the guys slog around in ever-baggier sacks. Basketball players used to wear the cutest bum-hugging little shorts; now they wear gigantic. knee-brushing drapes inspired by skateboarding kids circa 1992. While female tennis players sport midriff-bearing, cleavage-revealing, upper-arm-enhancing little lycra pantydresses, the guys schlep around in what appear to be their grandpas' boxers. But in football, well, there might not be much beauty in the game, but there's often beauty in the butts.

So, I'll go to the party. Watch the commercials. Sing along with the Who. And admire the tight ends.

Dough Boys

I miss the yeasty smell of babies. Snuggled up close, it was as if I were cuddling a freshly baked bread loaf.

Teenaged boys are not warm and doughy. More like the remains of a snow crab dinner that someone forgot to throw away. Rank-smelling. Bits of shell, with jagged edges.

I miss the babies.

What Not to Wear

So, what does Woman Facing 50 wear?

Wait, must establish parameters. 1. Cannot spend lot of money. Woman does not make much and married man who makes even less. Sigh. 2. Cannot involve pantyhose. Hate pantyhose. Plus suffer from vulvadynia. Combo of tight unbreathable synthetic up against thin, traumatized vulva not appealing. Plus: live in Deep South. Tend to sweat a lot down there. Everywhere, actually. 3. Cannot involve high heels. Hate high heels. Walk a lot. Treasure comfort. 4. Cannot involve underwire bras. Same reasons as number 3. Except maybe for the walking a lot. Boobs small. Boobs do not swing. No problem walking.

OK. Oooh, one additional important point of info: This particular Woman Facing 50 recently lost 15 pounds (kudos to Weightwatchers Online's Zero-Point Asian-Inspired and Mexican Soups) and so this particular Woman Facing 50, in moment of total self-congratulation, went out and bought leggings and kinda long sweater or is it a mini-dress thing. Which she wears with boots. Also skinny jeans. Also with boots. (Didn't have to buy the boots--amazing fashion-aware 14-year-old son gave boots for Christmas. Love and adore son. When not fantasizing about boarding school.) Love leggings and boots look. Love to swagger around campus feeling like Robin Hood.

But--NY Times fashion article decreed noone over 30 should even look at leggings. Noooooooo.

Even worse--came home from mall with skinny jeans to be greeted by 18-year-old son:
"Oh. My. God. You're not going to turn into one of those moms, are you?"
Umm. Which moms?
"Oh. Geez. You know."

And yes, I do know.

Am I one of those moms?

So, yesterday, after a bad night, tormented by self-doubt, I dressed exactly as I wanted to. It helped immensely that it was unusually cold here in south Louisiana. Unfortunately, dressing as I want to demands cold weather. I wore dangly earrings, a simple pullover sweater, a long skirt, cotton tights, ankle socks, and hiking boots. Vintage Annie Hall with a bit of Once thrown in. And I was happy. The dept secretary looked at me in astonishment and my students seemed more, umm, stunned than usual, but I was happy. Fuck it. I'm almost 50.

Wishing for a sippy cup

When I die, the epitaph on my tombstone should read, "She needed a nap." It's alarming how increasingly like a toddler I'm becoming. I get very cranky without regular feedings and a good long nap. It would be so nice if someone would read to me and wipe my nose now and then. And gosh, I'd love an animal cracker and a sippy cup of milk. But--the naps. These are not 15-minute power naps. I used to do those, back when I was a productive and ambitious scholar. I kept a beach towel in my office and would stretch out on it for a 15-20 minute nap most afternoons. Got me past the post-lunch yawniness and guaranteed the afternoon's achievements.

I no longer aspire to Productivity and Achievement. Just, you know, being ok. But the big obstacle to ok-ness is chronic insomnia. Now, it is true, the menopause manuals tell you to expect disrupted sleep, sleeplessness, insomnia. But here's where I'm actually at an advantage: I'm an insomniac from way back. Hah! I laugh in the face of menopausal sleep disruption! Go ahead, give it your all, you damned hormones. Or lack of them. Or whatever it is that is doing this shit to me. You can make me sweat. And cry. And forget basic info. And grow abundant facial fur while the hair on my head thins at an alarming rate. But you cannot affect my sleep if I do not sleep. And I do not. Haven't for years. So there.

Well, I do sleep. I nap. Yes, yes, I know, I know. An insomniac should not nap. Very very bad. I've been to the sleep clinics. Been through sleep therapy. Sleep therapies. Tried the herbs. The relaxation exercises. The yoga. The counseling. The warm milk. The deep breathing. The pills. Lovely, those pills. Knock you right out. But the thing is, the next day, you're as tired as ever. God is not fooled. So, I grab the sleep when it offers itself in the afternoons. Survival.

It's a comfort, knowing I've got this part of menopause down. Done and dusted, as the English say. It was the same way when the boys were babies. The sleep deprivation that sends other parents, that sent Keith, down into the Slough of Despond didn't hit me that hard. OK. Yes, it was hard. But it was also just goddamned normal. Well, as normal as life can be when you're an insomniac. Which is pretty fucking abnormal, frankly. Like for over a year, in a really really bad period of insomnia, I regularly checked my car tires for blood, just in case I had run over someone and not known about it. When you don't sleep for days on end, you get a tad, umm, weird.

So, I nap. It's embarrassing. It's the death knell of Achievement and Productivity. It means you provide your 14-year-old son with a giant sign saying Kick Me Here (Mom's asleep. . . . crank up the rap!) But--I'm still here. Sleepy. Cranky as hell. Longing for bed. But still here.

Plucked

Awhile back I discovered that my 14-year-old son Hugh had been exploring porn sites on the Web. It didn't take any fabulous powers of detection: he printed out pictures and then left them in the printer. On his dad's desk. I'm not really all that well-versed (well-visualized?) in porn, so I found the pictures fascinating. First, the absolutely enormous boobs. Compared to these women, even Barbie looks flat-chested. But it was the plucked crotches that really got me. I couldn't help but think of John Ruskin. A Victorian artist, writer, and critic, Ruskin was so shocked by the sight of his wife's pubic hair that he couldn't consummate his marriage. Up to that point, he only knew the naked female body through art and--think about it--most nudes, at least most nudes up to the mid-19th century, do not, as a rule, have pubes. So, when my husband came in and I showed him the porn pics and he asked me what I thought we should do, I said, "First, we make sure Hugh knows that real adult women have pubic hair." Keith found this a bizarre response, but it seemed to me an important parental responsibility. We don't want to send him out into the world unprepared.

Then I told Lori, my pedicure lady, about it. And Lori said, "Oh, no need to worry. Everyone gets the full "Brazilian" now." Everyone? Sigh. Once again, a standard I didn't even know about, let alone know that I was failing to meet it. So, like, all this time my gynecologist has been thinking, "Ewww! It's that hairy one again"-?

"And a little child. . ."

When Owen was about 4, I bought a really lovely hardcover children's Bible, with decent illustrations (no Jesuses with blond locks and blue eyes) and nice renditions of the stories. The idea was to conclude our nightly reading time with a Bible story and a prayer. So we started at the beginning--Creation--no problems. But Owen's response to the Fall hinted at what was to come. He couldn't understand why God was being so hardline, why he didn't give Adam and Eve a second chance; after all, it wasn't so bad to be curious, was it? I was startled, to say the least.

Then we got to Cain and Abel. Oh dear. Owen was appalled. Why wouldn't God like Cain's gift? It just wasn't fair. Thankfully, Cain rescued me by slaying Abel. Clearly that was bad, so ok, Cain was a Bad Guy. At 4, little boys understand about Bad Guys. At 4, little boys tend to be obsessed with Bad Guys.

But things just got worse. The Tower of Babel story reduced him to tears. "They couldn't talk to each other any more?! But what if they were friends? Why didn't God just tell them not to build the tower?" We muddled through.

Until we got to Abraham and Isaac. Sobbing in fury, Owen cried, "He killed the ram? He just killed it? And God thought that was ok??" Not that he wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac instead. He rejected the whole deal.

We stuck to the Gospels after that.