wickedqueen.net

Note: It’s sort of buried, so I thought I’d just add an opening note that the point of this whole entry, aside from how cute I am in my cycling clothes, is that I made my first 30-mile ride yesterday. This is somewhat less impressive in light of my father’s latest exploits, but we all have to start somewhere.

I got this jersey half-off from Sierra Trading Post, so it was a reasonable price instead of the usual crazy high one. Another cyclist complimented me on it while I was out riding, and she didn’t even get the full effect of my hair.

As you can see, however, it also pretty much matches my helmet. Also oleander.

I love oleander.

Soon after I took this photo of the fancy houses from afar, I discovered I was hopelessly lost. I don’t know why I continue to be surprised every time this happens. Eventually I had to call my sister and give her my location so that she could figure out how the hell I was supposed to get to Arastradero.

I got so lost that I got to see some of these houses up close. Los Altos Hills is full of them.

Of course, it’s also full of hills. This one has been magically flattened by the act of photography, apparently; I assure you that it was nearly vertical. I actually attempted to bike up it and had to give up about a third of the way up–WALKING up this hill was punishing. Then it turned out to be a dead end. Thanks for signing that, City of Los Altos Hills.

I did eventually make it to Arastradero. Apparently this is what lies beyond my turn-off for work–some kind of mini-vineyard.

Once on Arastradero, I actually even figured out where I made that first wrong turn, so next weekend maybe I’ll actually be able to do the route my landlord recommended, instead of random riding around, getting lost, backtracking, etc. At any rate, I still made 30 miles, so I was pleased. The jersey, in addition to suiting my personal style, was indeed very lightweight and comfortable. I’ve ordered a couple more, plus real bike shorts,* from Sierra Trading Post, since they have a bunch of stuff on clearance and they’d sent me an additional 20% off coupon.

The hair in these photos is already out of date, however, as following my triumphant return I redid my dye job–I’m back to solid Atomic Pink, thanks to Cyn. I couldn’t find the vaseline when I was getting started, which led to an unintended second bike trip to Long’s for supplies (you need vaseline to minimize hairline staining), which I have to say I did not really enjoy–I’d sort of been planning to be totally done with biking for the day. I also picked up some bleach wipes and leave-on spray cleaner for the shower, though. Just trying to reduce my environmental impact.

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*In fact, I ordered two matching ensembles, one purple/rose, one orange/coral. Rest assured I will post photos.

Right before I took the social psych prelim last month, I read a really interesting article in the June issue of Social Psychology Quarterly by Ellen Granberg about weight loss maintenance, incorporating Identity Control Theory, possible selves, and the narrative of self.* I don’t remember if I actually got to cite it on the prelim, but it was one of the few things that I actually enjoyed reading in my frantic whirlwind of studying.

Of course weight loss maintenance is something that holds particular significance for me, but I also thought that she synthesized the theories really well–basically, the idea is that losing weight is a process of identity change for most people who embark on the project, but that cultural narratives about what weight loss means do a lot to undermine the maintenance of the new, lower weight. Because we’re taught that losing weight will completely remake our lives, it’s very difficult to feel like we’ve “succeeded” when we do manage to lose weight and subsequently do not become perfect princess rock stars.

Possible selves are pretty self-explanatory; they can serve as motivators when we imagine ourselves actually inhabiting them, either positively (if I lose weight I will be a happy skinny person) or negatively (if I don’t lose weight I will be a miserable slug-like creature). Identity Control Theory argues that people seek out self-verifying feedback, and if they don’t get it, they may adjust either their behavior or their self-concept, with the latter usually being a last resort if the former doesn’t work. Granberg suggests that self-concept change may be a more frequently used strategy, however, in situations where one is adopting a new identity.

She argues that the people who are most successful at keeping weight off are those who either start out with domain-specific expectations about their skinnier possible self (”My cholesterol will go down”; “I will be able to ride my bike faster and longer”), or who are at least able to change/narrow their skinnier-self-concept if they start out thinking that they will experience a total extreme make-over of self by losing weight. People who can’t give up that construction of the skinnier self are more likely to become discouraged by the continued lack of confirmatory feedback and may end up reverting to old bad habits and regaining weight–because keeping weight off is a project, too, and one that doesn’t produce dramatic results like losing it did. If you feel like you’re working hard to maintain a self that’s really a disappointment–because you lost weight but you’re still not a perfect princess rock star–it’s not surprising that you might gradually become less dedicated to the work necessary to maintain weight loss.

This is definitely something that I find myself thinking about sometimes, although when I started working on losing weight, I think I was fairly realistic about what I wanted to attain; I just didn’t want to feel actively bad about my body anymore. But it’s hard to totally escape that mainstream cultural narrative of the fat ugly duckling becoming the thin beautiful swan, the plot of every other teen movie ever, even when you’re aware of it. It’s hard not to catch yourself thinking, when things get really shitty, I thought everything was supposed to be better now.

Like most psychological processes, I guess it’s just a matter of degree. No one is issue-free, and it probably doesn’t help that nobody’s body seems to fit the clothing designer ideal. My problem used to be my chest being too big for things; now it’s my shoulders, which are apparently freakishly broad in relation to the rest of me, and my butt, which isn’t there. But overall I feel pretty good about my body, and I still feel invested in maintaining the ground I’ve gained in the past year and a half.

Besides, while I know that weight loss will not fix everything that has ever gone wrong in my life, I’m pretty sure that these shoes will:

Um. Amazon is having a blow-out shoe sale.** Spend $80 or more and get free shipping (even for stuff that normally isn’t eligible, I think) and $20 off (that only works once, in case you were wondering).

WeightWatchers and other weight loss programs frequently suggest buying shoes as a reward for losing weight because, in addition to presenting an obviously superior alternative to, say, celebratory eating, your shoe size is much more resistant to change than your pants size. This is true, but I still lost about a half shoe-size last year, too. And yet, thanks to my incredibly well-muscled calves, buying any boots that go up much higher than those remains an ordeal. It’s always something.

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*Full citation: Granberg, Ellen. “‘Is That All There Is?’ Possible Selves, Self-Change, and Weight Loss.” Social Psychology Quarterly 69.2 (June 2006): 109-126.

**That link goes to the women’s section, because there doesn’t seem to be a link for the top level, and I suspect that most people who will be interested in this sale will be primarily interested in women’s shoes. But men’s and children’s are on sale, too.

I recently purchased strapless bras from the Figleaves.com summer sale. They arrived today–FedEx didn’t even bother to put the box in the foyer, instead choosing to just leave it out on the porch, but fortunately I happened upon it before it was pinched by passersby.

It’s nice to have a couple more strapless bras for summer, when I tend to wear a lot of tank tops and even the occasional actually strapless top, but they do raise a couple of issues:

• Okay, I know that “nude” is never going to be me-colored. I have come to accept the fact that it might–MIGHT–be a shade lighter than my freckles, if I’m lucky. Why, however, are there so few permutations of nude available in bras? I own pantyhose that are approximately the color of my skin, even if they were humiliatingly labeled “oatmeal.” A nude bra, however, might as well be a BROWN bra for all the chance it has of ever seeming to blend into my natural skin tone under any garment that might raise the issue, and there don’t seem to be any “oatmeal” bras out there.
• What is the point of clear plastic bra straps? My black strapless came with a set of black straps (makes sense) and a set of clear plastic. I’ve seen them with other bras, but they don’t really make sense. One assumes that clear straps are meant to be, like, invisible, but I have never encountered a pair of clear plastic straps that were not quite obviously THERE, and let’s face it, clear plastic is never classy. It’s like you’re wearing jelly shoes on your shoulders or something. If people are going to see your straps, making them clear plastic isn’t going to make it look any more elegant.

The really nice thing about Figleaves.com, btw, besides their occasional big sales, is that they carry an INSANE range of sizes, extending far beyond even my mildly weird one. And they have free returns to make up for the inability to try stuff on.

Clothing and other items worn by Macalester 2006 Commencement participants:

• One pink suit, complete with satin cravat.
• One flag of unidentified country, worn as a cape.
• Kimonos (3).
• One silver sequined evening gown, with matching silver sequined mortarboard.
• Sundresses (numerous).
• Traditional women’s garb of Iceland.
• Kilts and those little Scottish berets (the pipe band).
• Pitched battle of tiny army men (glued to mortarboard).

Macalester apparently does not require graduates to wear either a cap or a gown, a fact that Sophie thought to mention as we were looking for a parking place, suddenly wondering if we were going to be upset about her failure to wear a gown, as she had heard parents often were. We didn’t care. She had a mortarboard, although as it turned out, the assurances of the girl at the U of M bookstore where she bought it aside, she was pretty much the only graduate with a gold tassel.

The audience members ran pretty much the full gamut of formality. My own simple brown suit blended in fine, although I didn’t see anyone else with hair that, as my sister complains, appears in many photos to have been superimposed with a computer after the fact.

Now my sister is a college graduate. She avers that she has “always been a fan of the distant future but the near future is a bit nerve-wracking,” but she has an apartment for next year and I’m sure she’ll find some suitable joe job to pass the immediate future time. I am very proud of her.

Why, why, WHY did I drink that cup of coffee at 8:00 at night? Why? Am I stupid?

I stand behind the double chocolate cheesecake. But for the love of god, why didn’t I get decaf?

Got shoes for the wedding at Old Navy–metallic silver braided thong sandals, a step and a half above flip flops, should be perfect for an outdoor wedding under a full-length skirt. And they’re plain and comfy enough that I’ll wear them again. I also got two pairs of classic Old Navy flip-flops, in green and orange respectively. I love the pair I already have, and it’s fun to be able to coordinate them with outfits.

And I got denim cut-offs and cargo capris, because I need summer pants. It seems like all I ever do anymore is buy clothes, but all those OTHER clothes I bought were for winter, and I just had to give another two bags of stuff to St. Vinnie’s because all my summer hippie skirts that I assumed would be fine turned out to be grossly too big when I actually tried them on. A draw string only goes so far. I saved one just to see if it can be taken in, but the rest went, replaced by a single tiered peasant skirt from State Street. I foresee more shorter denim skirts this summer, as I seem to have amassed several of them in my winter clothes shopping forays.

In fact, I wore my cute Levi’s denim skirt today. It got up to 71 degrees. I also wore strappy platform sandals, because dammit, I have been waiting for this day for a MONTH. Tomorrow we’re supposed to have isolated thunderstorms, but it will still be warm. God, I am ready for summer.

Purchased on State Street this afternoon: one strappy, sheer leopard print top. With glitter.

If only it was hot pink, it would be perfect. But it’s still pretty good.

Greg and I keep bemoaning the recent lack of departmental karaoke, and then failing to email people about it. I WOULD email people about it, right now, except that I am on my laptop and have no one’s email addresses on it. Dammit.

But you can bet that the next time you see me singing karaoke, I will be wearing a strappy, sheer, glittery leopard print top. Yowza.

It’s the First Day of School. Sadly, this is less exciting than it used to be, although I suppose I put more effort into it in high school, dancing around my room to “Punk Rock Girl” while selecting the perfect outfit.* Not that I’m not still sartorially obsessed–most of the evening before my masters defense was spent not, like, going over my paper or anything, but instead trying on every skirt I owned and agonizing over my shoe selection.

Anyway, I have a class at 2:30 this afternoon, and then I have an appointment for an MRI, because the psych department has tapped me for not one but TWO new studies, both of which pay $20 an hour. Thank god I am a right-handed person who has never been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Although it is going to be even more of a pain getting an MRI now, because in addition to all my piercings, I have a MedicAlert bracelet to take off–and the clasp on that thing is a BITCH. Oh, well. $20 an hour.

I stopped at Walgreens on the way to campus to pick up a new three-subject notebook and some pens–I also ended up with a portable file case, which seemed like it might be the answer to my long-standing organizational problems. About halfway through last semester, I started showing up to everything with the wrong binder. We’ll see if the file case does any good. And also how long it takes me to lose four black pens.

There were huge lines at Walgreens, of course, even at the cosmetics counter (which is usually the way to go when they have huge lines), but they were pretty efficient. There was also a huge line at the Union for student bus passes, but it moved really fast. So now I have school supplies AND my spring semester bus pass, so I’m feeling moderately efficient.

Today I also received the first CD I have purchased directly from Pandora Radio. While I had previously purchased a couple of CDs by artists who I recognized from hearing them on Pandora, it was only when Pandora played two tracks from God Bless the Go-Gos in quick succession, and I really liked both of them, that I actually used their “Buy this album from Amazon” link.

I am currently listening to a station based around “Teardrop” by Massive Attack. The first three songs they played were all really good AND new to me; if you don’t use Pandora, you should try it.

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*And of course, in high school, I had not spent the previous evening drinking half-priced bottles of wine. On balance, this is better.

So as I mentioned recently, I went to northern Missouri last week to be fitted for a bridesmaid’s dress. I went with my friend Crystal, who is also a bridesmaid in the wedding; the bride had an out-of-town appointment, so it was just the two of us and a friend of theirs looking for a wedding dress of her own.

The bride had already specified the separates that we were supposed to get; everyone was getting the same skirt, with our choice of tops. The first thing the store owner did, once we’d identified ourselves, was start wailing about how ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE the selected skirt was going to look on Crystal.

“It’s your… hips,” she kept saying, meaning, Crystal interpreted later, “weight.”

She kept at that for 15 or 20 minutes, stopping just sort of suggesting that the bridal party would resemble nothing so much as a school of whales, outfitted in these skirts. Then it was my turn.

There I was, innocently trying on a sort of rounded square-necklined halter top, making the other girl hold it tight behind me so that I could see how it might look if it actually fit–understandably, the tops they keep around for people to try on are in fairly large sizes; this makes it sort of difficult to imagine how they will fit you if you are a smaller size, but at least more people can try them on.

Anyway, there I was, when up slinked (slank?) the bridal shop owner.

“Well,” she said dubiously. “It’s better than the strapless… you really need some straps at least; you have SUCH BROAD SHOULDERS.”

I refrained from responding, “You’re goddamn right I do.” I can military press 100 pounds on the machine at the Serf. I’m pretty proud of them. But THEN.

THEN, she said, “Of course, it will fit better when we get your size in… and of course we could always PAD OUT THE CUPS.”

No one has ever made such a suggestion to me before in my entire life.

And of course, given that the top was, numerically, twice my size, one would imagine that in my size, it would not appear to be swallowing my chest. I know I’ve lost some weight, but there is no call to go around insinuating that I am some kind of boobless waif.

Bridal people. Yeesh.

I think the top will actually look pretty good on me, in my size. But the whole experience only strengthened my desire for an elopement/Vegas pirate wedding.

Tomorrow I get fitted for a bridesmaid’s dress.

We’re doing separates; we’re all wearing the same color (indigo) and skirt (long, with as I recall a slight train), but we get to choose our own tops to best flatter our individual forms.

My goal here is to pick out something that could be reused as a semi-slutty top for bar-going. In addition to being cost-effective, the combination of any hint of my breasts AND two of my three tattoos being visible should occupy the bride’s Evil Stepmother’s attention for a good 45 minutes to an hour–time that would otherwise have been spent harping on the bride.

I’m so self-sacrificing. Now, what hair color goes with indigo?

Small children, particularly little girls, love my hair. Many people, children and adults alike, stare openly when they see me–particularly in southeast Missouri–but children are not shy about making loud evaluations (although they’re usually positive from small children anyway) .

Yesterday, in line to pay at JC Penney, a little girl of 4 or 5 began whispering loudly to her mother: “Mommy, mommy, look at her pretty pink hair!”

The mother allowed as how, yes, I did have pretty pink hair; I thanked the little girl and told her that her hair was very pretty, too (she had the blonde waves that I always craved at her age, in fact, when all I had was my weird mutant Einstein hair). She thanked me and then began jumping up and down yelling, “I wish MY hair was pink! I wish MY hair was pink!”

Her mother picked her up. She bellowed, “I wish I was pink ALL OVER! I WOULD BE THE PINKEST LITTLE GIRL IN THE WORLD!”

As Dad commented, I may be too much excitement for some children.

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Later, in Famous Barr, Terri commented on the staring.

“Everywhere we go, people stare at you OPENLY!”
“Yeah, I know, but I really don’t even notice anymore.”
“I keep thinking, ‘Why is that person looking at me?’ but then I realize–they don’t even know I’m HERE.”
“Think of it as making up for all those people who only had eyes for you when we were in high school.”

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The post-Christmas sales were pretty good. I got the hot pink cat print Cuddle Duds I’ve been craving at Penney’s, and they were still on sale–I also got a zip-up fleece for the Door Busters (pre-noon) price, because they hadn’t taken down the sign yet. And I got a few other articles of clothing there and a couple of things at Famous Barr, but the big winner was Kohl’s, where I ended up signing up for one of their charge cards for an extra 10% off my entire purchase and where most of their sweaters, my main objective, were already 60% off. Most of the ones I got were under $10.

I also got a couple of pairs of jeans there, corduroys at Penney’s, and a pair of jeans and a super-cheap pair of dark green cotton-blend pants that could almost pass for dress at Famous Barr. (Remember, everything was on sale, and nothing I own fits anymore.) I remember that it used to be a pain to buy pants, back in high school when I was tiny, but now that I am fairly small again but also have muscles, it is even worse. For one thing, I have very well-developed thighs from fencing and weight-lifting, and when I find a pair of pants that fits them, most of the time I have this huge gap in the waistband, such that I can just sort of pull it forward and look down at my underwear. Not sexy.

Anyway, we at least found one pair of jeans that fit AND had back pockets with button flaps, which Terri says should enhance my bottom.