Bloginatrix

8pm. Raging headache. I am glaring at the clock with one hand pressed over my eye, dreading my 10, 11 and 12 shows.

“Do you have to go?” asks J., glancing up from his computer. I nod. It’s way too late to cancel, and I know that once I get there, I won’t have time to worry about my head anyway.

I fret over what acts to pack. The Slipper Room crowd is notoriously distracted, but I still want to give them a good show. My headachey displeasure oozes over my perception of everything, and tonight, none of my acts seem any good at all. After I’ve worked myself halfway to tears rejecting everything in my repertoire, J. calls helpfully from the living room “Take the bug! Everyone loves the bug!”.

He’s right. The lightning bug act is consistently a crowd favorite. I’ve been waffling on because the costume is heavy and awkward to carry. But It’s one of my favorite acts to perform, and I decide to bring it, hoping it’ll lift my mood. Factoring in the blazing head pain and the fact that I only have one set of arms, my Caravan number is the obvious choice for my second act. One big, sparkly number with a pain-in-the-ass costume and one pretty, classic number with a sheer, sexy costume I could carry in a lunch box. Read more…

So. These blog entries are a lot of fun to post when I get to be the sassy, indignant, righteous fat lady spreading the gospel of body love.

But sometimes… I’m not that lady.

Sometimes I’m just me, and sometimes me is too tired to engage people on body issues. Sometimes I’m having a bad body day and feeling sheepish and weak.  Sometimes, I buy other people’s body lies. I let their doubts and criticisms permeate my hard, glittering, jerk-repellant “I’m Glamorous” shell, and in those moments, I see me the way they see me. It’s almost never good.

But you know what? I’m not perfect. No one is. And if there’s one reason I write these entries, it’s that I believe that women HAVE to take back our relationships with our bodies. We have to create space to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly… the ambivalent body days and the stone-sure confident ones. The creepy-crawly under the rock moments and the triumphant victories.

This isn’t a victory story, but I’m going to tell it anyway, because the low moments are every bit as important and valid and real as the high.

So we begin… Read more…