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juushikaAfter watching Devon play Saints Row 3—and after playing just enough of it to go clothes shopping and blow some shit up with tanks—I'm having weird Second Life cravings which are less about SL and more about character design. I suppose I could play Sims, but not unlike SL it requires such a significant investment (initial and ongoing) that I can talk myself out of it.
I've lost about ten pounds within the last few months, the result of slightly more exercise and slightly better eating, just enough of an improvement that I can see it and feel more comfortable in my skin, just little enough that I'm paranoid about losing it. The best thing I can do is continue to get more exercise and maintain a stable diet—I'm more concerned with the former than the latter—and my body would probably be happiest if I lost another five to ten pounds. Ideally ... well, who the hell knows. As established, my view of beauty is incompatible with or, more correctly, unrelated to my actual body. "Ideally," I'd weigh little more than a hundred pounds and would wear long drapey layers, if there was a me-as-we-know-it at all.
But gaining a little control over my body makes me want more. It threatens to become an unhealthy and unwinnable battle against my body, against every bite of food, against every minute not at least spent doing leg bends. It makes me want to go shopping, or at least to have something approximating a wardrobe; it makes me curious about the terrifying and depression-inducing realm of makeup (which if I explored here would make for much too long a post); it makes me want to develop a mode of self-presentation, a style, a visual identity.
I've been watching Being Human as I do some never-leave-the-room recuperation and hiding, and one character—Mitchell—frequently wears a pair of green knit fingerless gloves. I have a weakness for this sort of comic-style character design: when everyone has pretty much the same face, they get distinguishing features instead, a crazy hair color and certain hair style, a fixed outfit, a trademark accessory, headphones or jacket or fingerless gloves.
When I think about owning my self-presentation, I want to design myself in the same way—however silly it is to treat yourself as an anime character, despite the fact that I do have a distinct face: it's a form of character design that I understand and appreciate, because of my exposure to it but also because my face blindness and inability to visualize means that cheat-sheet character indicators are useful to me even in the real world. But when I wonder what my indicators would be, I draw half a blank. There's no single piece of clothing (other than perhaps thumbhole sleeves/arm warmers) that I would want to wear all the time, and I'm trying to train myself not to live in just one hairstyle. But everywhere that I make an avatar—in Second Life and in stupid silly Flash memes—the bare necessities are pale skin, red hair, green eyes, glasses, cat parts, and sometimes a collar. Where cat ears aren't an option, the character never quite feels like an avatar—that is, like an image of me. In the real world I'm stuck with blue eyes (no contacts, thank you), and I'm at peace with that; I've internalized my coloring enough that I associate it with myself (unlike my body shape and facial features). But cat ears, a tail, whiskers even, are as much a part of my internal self-image as my hair color, and more integral than my body shape or gender.
On Halloween I wore my cat-eared hoodie and bell-and-tag collar (this one, but it also has a heart tag with my name on it now) when we walked to the store and when I answered the door, and I've never felt so comfortable as myself. Paranoid and nervous too, of course, because Dee gave me those ears almost a year ago but I'd still never worn them out of the house—but Halloween is the day that you can be yourself by pretending it's just a costume, and that costume was me: just a black hoodie and blue jeans and big stompy black shoes, and cat ears, and a cute collar with a bell. It wasn't ten-pounds-lighter me, or hundred-pound-waif not-me, but it was a me that felt comfortable and true.
Even more pathetic than designing yourself like an anime character is pretending you can be a catgirl and pull it off. On the other hand, who's gonna judge you—your supportive boyfriend, or your supportive roommate? Who'd even know it was more than a novelty when they saw you at the grocery store? (Unless I also take to wearing a tail, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.) But that hoodie still sits unloved, and I'm not sure how to even contemplate wearing the ears without it—on a headband I guess, but then I'd have to try finding a headband that works, and it all just gets ... silly. It's absurd, and I'm not sure if it's something I shouldn't even consider or something I should have to take so long to consider, but there we go.
August says it's bedtime. I'm inclined to agree.
I've lost about ten pounds within the last few months, the result of slightly more exercise and slightly better eating, just enough of an improvement that I can see it and feel more comfortable in my skin, just little enough that I'm paranoid about losing it. The best thing I can do is continue to get more exercise and maintain a stable diet—I'm more concerned with the former than the latter—and my body would probably be happiest if I lost another five to ten pounds. Ideally ... well, who the hell knows. As established, my view of beauty is incompatible with or, more correctly, unrelated to my actual body. "Ideally," I'd weigh little more than a hundred pounds and would wear long drapey layers, if there was a me-as-we-know-it at all.
But gaining a little control over my body makes me want more. It threatens to become an unhealthy and unwinnable battle against my body, against every bite of food, against every minute not at least spent doing leg bends. It makes me want to go shopping, or at least to have something approximating a wardrobe; it makes me curious about the terrifying and depression-inducing realm of makeup (which if I explored here would make for much too long a post); it makes me want to develop a mode of self-presentation, a style, a visual identity.
I've been watching Being Human as I do some never-leave-the-room recuperation and hiding, and one character—Mitchell—frequently wears a pair of green knit fingerless gloves. I have a weakness for this sort of comic-style character design: when everyone has pretty much the same face, they get distinguishing features instead, a crazy hair color and certain hair style, a fixed outfit, a trademark accessory, headphones or jacket or fingerless gloves.
When I think about owning my self-presentation, I want to design myself in the same way—however silly it is to treat yourself as an anime character, despite the fact that I do have a distinct face: it's a form of character design that I understand and appreciate, because of my exposure to it but also because my face blindness and inability to visualize means that cheat-sheet character indicators are useful to me even in the real world. But when I wonder what my indicators would be, I draw half a blank. There's no single piece of clothing (other than perhaps thumbhole sleeves/arm warmers) that I would want to wear all the time, and I'm trying to train myself not to live in just one hairstyle. But everywhere that I make an avatar—in Second Life and in stupid silly Flash memes—the bare necessities are pale skin, red hair, green eyes, glasses, cat parts, and sometimes a collar. Where cat ears aren't an option, the character never quite feels like an avatar—that is, like an image of me. In the real world I'm stuck with blue eyes (no contacts, thank you), and I'm at peace with that; I've internalized my coloring enough that I associate it with myself (unlike my body shape and facial features). But cat ears, a tail, whiskers even, are as much a part of my internal self-image as my hair color, and more integral than my body shape or gender.
On Halloween I wore my cat-eared hoodie and bell-and-tag collar (this one, but it also has a heart tag with my name on it now) when we walked to the store and when I answered the door, and I've never felt so comfortable as myself. Paranoid and nervous too, of course, because Dee gave me those ears almost a year ago but I'd still never worn them out of the house—but Halloween is the day that you can be yourself by pretending it's just a costume, and that costume was me: just a black hoodie and blue jeans and big stompy black shoes, and cat ears, and a cute collar with a bell. It wasn't ten-pounds-lighter me, or hundred-pound-waif not-me, but it was a me that felt comfortable and true.
Even more pathetic than designing yourself like an anime character is pretending you can be a catgirl and pull it off. On the other hand, who's gonna judge you—your supportive boyfriend, or your supportive roommate? Who'd even know it was more than a novelty when they saw you at the grocery store? (Unless I also take to wearing a tail, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.) But that hoodie still sits unloved, and I'm not sure how to even contemplate wearing the ears without it—on a headband I guess, but then I'd have to try finding a headband that works, and it all just gets ... silly. It's absurd, and I'm not sure if it's something I shouldn't even consider or something I should have to take so long to consider, but there we go.
August says it's bedtime. I'm inclined to agree.
