Not Too Sexy...

Yesterday I was shopping with a friend when the topic of makeup - specifically, my wearing next to none - came up. Notably enough, it's something that several friends have mentioned to me recently. "M, you're not in your early twenties anymore, and at this age you can't get away with wearing no makeup the way you did before," said another well-intentioned confidante in reference to my approaching thirtieth birthday. So, in an act of surrender, I submitted my face to the full treatment before going out last night - eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, bronzer, other tools that I can't quite remember or put on myself...

In the course of applying the complicated paint, my friend R and I got into a discussion about sexiness. See, despite my ardent love of fashion, I'm the girl who wears boots and a sweater (and only a little lip gloss and tinted moisturizer) to a bar. The traditional uniform - namely a low-cut top and smoke eyes - does not suit me. Yes, I will wear the occasional mini dress, but that's as far as it goes. So whilst giving me a lesson in makeup, I was also schooled in the Art of Sexy. My blue bra? Decidedly not. Winter-pale skin? Nope. Cotton underwear? A horror! (And one several ex-boyfriends lamented, adding "you have such a nice body, why don't you ever wear anything that reveals it?"). What about sexy lingerie, my friend inquired. Didn't I have any black thongs? Yes, a couple that I wear when necessary, but I don't like them. Black lacy bras? Maybe one buried deep within my dresser drawers...Such things were necessary when going out, even on a first date when (ostensibly) no one would see them. Because they're sexy. It's important to always be sexy.

Personally, my logic has always been that expensive lingerie, except on certain occasions, was kind of a waste of money. With limited resources, shoes and travel always have taken priority. I don't not wear revealing clothing because I am ashamed of my body, but because being ogled is not something I particularly enjoy. And in all honesty, I'm not too good at seducing men. (I cringe in abject horror at one failed attempt to woo a particularly attractive guy on my last vacation...Let's just say that it's not my forte and leave it at that). But maybe everyone was right. Maybe I had gone terribly astray. Was I squandering youth - what may possibly be the time of my life when I look my best - on granny panties (God I hate that word, but sometimes nothing else will do!) and a stubborn refusal to flaunt my assets? Maybe I should take their advice. Even if I feel like an impostor or a phony. In time I will get better, right? And I do want to be sexy, don't I?

In the shower this morning I pondered it. What was "sexy" anyway? I thought about what I found sexy in others - intelligence, compassion, a sense of social conscience, self-deprecation, a penchant for the eccentric and unusual, good taste in music...Muscles, rock hard abs and a swagger have never impressed me in men. I like glasses. I like a raucous laugh and the ability to make a fool of oneself with abandon.

So I guess sexiness, like beauty, is really highly individual. And by taking on another persona, I will be playing a part - something that, to me, is the least sexy thing a person can do. So I'm not going to run out and toss my aqua bra and don a halter. In the spirit of compromise and change, however, I will probably invest in some mascara...

March 17th, 2004

I should stop asking
Questions that have no answer
But they linger in the air
Phantoms
Ever present even if unacknowledged

I should accept
That you did your best
That I did as well
That there is no more room in this tiny chamber
For guilt or blame
We cannot coexist any longer

I should be glad that you are not in pain any longer
The intensity of your suffering has ceased
Yet it still lives with me; so vivid in my dreams
You wouldn't want me to remember you that way
Your smile should be more potent that your tears

I should have accepted your absence by my now
You left long ago
Yet sometimes I still reach for the phone
About to call you
Anxious to hear your voice
And then I remember
I would rather forget

You once told me
That should is the most useless word in the English language
And I agreed.

For my mother, Marilyn Ann Gluck, January 15th, 1948 - March 17th, 2004

You, or Your Memory

This is what I remember.

When we came back to the apartment, I went to your room. I was convinced you would be there. But it was empty. Your clothing was hanging in the closet, your shoes out on the floor. The t-shirts in your drawer had just been washed - they smelled like Tide - like you. I ran to the bathroom. The sink was filled with shavings - bits and pieces of black hair, stark against the white ceramic. You had just shaved the day before. How could you be gone if you had just shaved? Every evidence of your life - the daily, mundane parts in addition to the photographs, the treasured memories - was right there, in living color, before my very eyes. Such things do not happen. Human beings do not simply disappear from this Earth.

I was at your funeral. The rabbi gave me and H the piece of black ribbon to pin on our clothing, to signify that we were in mourning. Physical evidence of your absence in living color, for everyone to see. But still, I did not believe.

I put on your watch. I slept with your shirts. I begged others not to donate your clothing. I didn't want your closet touched; "Please Mommy, leave Dad's dresser the way it was. I don't want anyone else wearing his things." Because I knew you would be back. I knew it. Each time the key turned in the door, I waited, my heart in my throat. It had to be you! I was not going to go through life never hearing your voice again, that deep, crazy laugh. You would come back to the living room and pace like you did when nervous. You would stand out on the terrace, looking out across the Hudson at I don't know what - some distant sight far away, too far for me to see or comprehend.

But you didn't.

Today I am going to a funeral. It will be the first time I return; the same place where the rabbi gave me that black ribbon. Now, sixteen years later, I no longer wait to hear the sound of the key in the door. Your shirts - your things - are long gone. I have your watch; it is with Mom's things now. I put them all together in a jewelry box after her funeral. I know you are not coming back.

But I have not forgotten.

For my father, Barry Alan Gluck, September 5th, 1944 - July 14, 1992

Note: the title is from "You, or Your Memory", a song by The Mountain Goats from their album, The Sunset Tree