I’m in the midst of this long process of minimalism begun almost a year ago and continued, in steps (not all completed) like 1) Marfa, Texas, Part I 2)“The Anthropologie of Yard Sales” 3) Discovering the wave of minimalism and minimalist bloggers living on Twitter (is Twitter minimalist?) 4) “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo 5) Marfa Texas, Part II 6) “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown 7) The continuing purge of my 700 square foot rented apartment. I didn’t finish “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” yet, because I’m not ready to deal with my sentimental photos and papers.
And then there’s all the shit I have at my parents’ house.
In the beginning, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be a minimalist or just wanted to discard all my current belongings so I could recreate my space to look like Donald Judd’s city home, “The Block”, the lobby at El Cosmico, or the Garza Marfa Instagram feed. That kind of minimalism proved cost prohibitive, and I found as I emptied – as you will read again and again in blogs across the web nation, I felt lighter. It was easier to clean. I didn’t feel weighted down by possessions I had to care for, the way I felt weighted down by the thoughts in my head and relationships occupying my time and emotional space.
That’s the real corollary of minimalism – you realize as you clear physical belongings that you must clear some mental ones. You MUST. The physical work of decluttering shows you that the emotional part will be work too.
As much as I have accomplished, there’s still so much I want to do. Is it minimalist to be obsessed by minimizing? I haven’t acquired much since I began minimizing, but I still get overwhelmed with feeling blocked in by my stuff and thoughts and associations. And then overwhelmed by the pressing desire and need to clear more space for my never shrinking thoughts. But I’ve always been obsessive, and that’s my creative energy at work. Extra things lacking inspiration have just become unbearable. It becomes obvious which things in your life bring productive energy and which just bring you down.
For example, Facebook has become almost 100% indigestible for me. I look at it at few times a week, sometimes once or twice and day and then not again for several days. I deactivate a couple times a month. Every time I do log on, I feel confounded by the sight of it, the new friend requests, the red number counting the things I haven’t looked at that I’m not missing, yet I’m still afraid to just delete it, so I put it off. It’s kind of like the serving dishes I inexplicably own, the cake riser I’ve used once three years ago. I hate storing these things and desperately want room in my cabinets but somehow think I might serve a cake again someday.
I don’t actually remember the last time I made a cake – it was probably three years ago. And when I hold the cake riser, I am filled with the stress of thinking I should use it, disappointment that I haven’t used such a pretty object, and worry that I’ll never own a cake riser again.
Does anyone have vagina hair anymore? I mean seriously, anyone other than me and Cameron Diaz?
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am when all my friends tell me they are getting all of their pubic hair removed for an upcoming beach trip. Or, they just do that all the time and claim to really like it or that they enjoy sex more that way. Having never done this, I can’t imagine the sensation, either of not having any hair in that area or of the in between phase before when you get it all taken off again. It sounds painful, uncomfortable, and… cold.
Friends claim they feel cleaner with out their private lady’s department curtains, and don’t share my opinion that the girls in 70’s hustlers are sexy. Pubic hair is sexy to me, is that weird? I mean, you don’t get it till you’re an adult, and then it covers up your sexy parts. What isn’t hot about that?
I am a brunette, and hair removal is the bane of my existence. A childhood best friend and I shaved our legs the summer we were ten (we were both so fucking hairy already). Our conservative mothers (Catholic – mine, Baptist – hers) had forbidden us to do so at a young age but clearly had no idea what we were dealing with on the playground. Pretty much like, no time to grow up girls, you better be a woman as soon as you’re in double digits. Start painting your nails and wearing a bra, men are going to look at you. We were so scared to tell them that instead we recorded our confession on a cassette tape which we then listened to with them. Clever children of the eighties.
As I do with most things, I took it upon myself to be my own waxer as a teenager. I remember a dorm mate in upstate New York complaining about pubic hairs on the toilet seats of our bathroom. “I know what people are doing, they’re trimming their pubes in the bathroom. You don’t trim your pubes on the toilet, you trim them over your fuckin’ basket!” I’m pretty sure the light bulb for me was “oh my god, you can trim it?” other than thinking “oh my god, you can’t do that on the toilet?” Don’t even get me started on the early 80’s, my earliest memories of what a woman looks like. It was Hustler magazine and beyond.
Have you seen the cartoon showing the progression of women’s pubic hair and men’s facial hair?
(I got this from Alexi Wasser’s Instagram – thanks Alexi!)
I think even the five year gap between my age and some of my friends makes for a huge disconnect in pubic hair stylings. The Brazilian was a big deal in my twenties and a great plot device in “Bergdorf Blondes”, by Vogue contributor Plum Sykes (she almost seems like a relic of the “Sex and the City” era now). My more millennial leaning girlfriends went straight past Brazil to bald.
The older you get the worse dealing with body hair gets, just like hangovers. Things start to just be rebellious. In direct proportion to the more sensitive every inch of my body seems to be, everyone has less and less hair.
I wonder, did the guys I’ve had sex with feel a sense of surprise when they got me out of my panties? Was it novel to them or did they hide their disgust? Do they care? Are women doing this for us? Much like I’m not interested in men who are most attracted to my polar opposite – a woman with fake breasts, artificially blonde hair, the works – I assume the guys who are attracted to me aren’t into the sphynx cat look. I mean, I feel like my luxurious head of natural hair should be some kind of indication that I’m probably not going bare everywhere else. But I could be wrong.
If a guy’s own manscaping proclivities are any indicator of his interests, I’ve certainly been involved with some men who like things on the bare side. I feel a negative sense of surprise in the situations when I’ve encountered a bare man area (what is this called?) or, even worse… stubble. I don’t care that it looks bigger. I appreciate some manscaping on someone who can use it, but it’s unfair that women are expected, or even think they look better with negative pubic hair when in my experience most men still seem to let it run wild.
An old boyfriend (a very brief one) gave me a telephone warning before I came over one night: “sometimes I shave down there”. He didn’t want me to be surprised. I assured him that this wasn’t a new idea to me. However, we hadn’t really spoken for several days after an argument when this happened. All I could think was, he was so excited we were going to have sex again, he got all stoked and shaved his pubes. No flowers or anything like that, just a hairless package. What a douche.
I’ve heard stories of guys who really like to go down requesting a bit of consideration, and while I’m sure this is embarrassing for any woman involved, we all must admit that we can relate. Why not tend to the hair down there just like the hair on your head, and use it as a well thought out accessory? Maybe the next trend should be special pubic hair conditioners? Does this already exist? (There are some online articles about how to soften it!)
Cameron Diaz caused somewhat of a stir when her book “The Body Book” came out and dedicated 367 words to pubes. Her biggest message was non-support of laser hair removal, and her pertinent mention of gravity was humbling. Upon googling this I was pleasantly reminded of Gwyneth Paltrow’s obsession with her big, 70’s bush. Like others have said, and I don’t care what anyone really says, Gwyneth is a true gangster. And her hair probably grows in a perfect blonde triangle no matter how much Cameron says it’s waving in her bathwater “like seaweed”. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2424083/Gwyneth-Paltrow-talking-bikini-line-returns-Ellen-DeGeneres-Show-months-admitting-rocks-70s-vibe.html
Do you remember the weird vagina flashing moment Britney Spears had? My stomach turns just thinking about it. Who wants non-select people to see that, and who doesn’t wear underwear with a skirt that short? Just think of the bacteria you’re exposing yourself to, and, like Amy Poehler said on Weekend Update at the time, “nobody wants to see your roast beef sandwich!” Ew. But true. Was this a reaction to what Fred Durst said about her bush on Howard Stern? Were Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan behind it?
I was less offended by the vagina flashing of Alana Haim. I’m not sure she CAN wear underwear with her shorts. During Haim’s amazing set, I realized I was basically looking at Alana’s vulva. “Is this ok?” I wondered. I felt weirdly comfortable with it, like, maybe just that part can be shown if it’s because of short shorts, and you’re also a badass musician powerfully owning your presence before an audience. I also wondered if she was magically just not hairy, or really dedicated to a waxing regime (hard to tell, as Baby Haim is from a distinctly different generation than me). My friend put it very well at the end of the show when she said “I enjoyed looking at Baby Haim’s poonanny a lot more than I expected”. It was weirdly feminist in her case. Should I be okay with vagina flashing being like a hint of thong or midriff or something? I’m pretty into my cleavage. I mean, is it just like an “accept my vagina!” thing? Because I still can’t think of a male equivalent, or Americans getting European about vaginas like Europeans are about breasts.
Alana Haim (see photo for credit).
I think Amy Schumer’s skit best portrays how I feel about all this. Isn’t it hard enough to be a woman already? Let me list the things I already worry about:
eyebrows
grey hair
cellulite
unpainted nails
wrinkles
fat
pale skin
dry skin
sun spots
The list of unacceptable traits goes on and on. I don’t know how any of us have time to go to work or have social lives. Extreme hair removal is like another thing to keep us out of the workforce… pair it with how expensive daycare is.
And here is where I end on a feminist note: The most recent Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. I don’t have a problem with photos of beautiful women, though of course there should be more woman-directed beefcake out there (i.e. not for gay men). Fuck that shit about women not being visual, have you seen @hotdudesreading on Instagram? Anyway, not only is the bathing suit bottom tiny (and check out Kate Upton’s 2012 cover), but the girl is pulling it down to reveal an area that, on most women who haven’t been to the salon, would have a few hairs growing.
I’ve never been a “keep that off the newsstand!” person, but if I had a daughter, I’d be 100% supportive of keeping this off the newsstand. Because, what it is saying to me (and I’m 37!) is that, it’s not enough to show your tits, your ass, your legs, your pretty face you better hope stays pretty, you’re gonna have to show your vagina too. So get that ready, won’t you?
interstalking 