Never
Come What May
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2000
- Posts
- 23,234
Self-Inventory
At the suggestion of another board member I decided to do a bit of physical self-inventory. This is a rare occurrence in my daily routine, stopping to just look at myself has always reeked of a form of vanity; that self-indulgence of making what I think, and what I say, and what I look like into something of actual importance.
Mirrors are not the best of friends. Not because they are too honest but they lack any perspective but your own. I glanced slowly at first into that clear, reflective glass and then a slight frown descended on my lips as my gaze narrowed to various spots and areas. Was I being too self critical or was I simply seeing myself as others saw me?
The first thing I noticed was the tone of my skin; I do much to avoid sunlight but what at first seemed a pleasant soft white with a slight hint of olive soon transformed beneath my critical gaze, and revealed my skin as a chalky paste slathered across my features. Worse, like some blind albino snake that had wandered into the sunlit lands, my skin lacked its own pigment and so absorbed the sickly yellow the bathroom light shed. Suddenly, that brush of olive now seemed sinister - Jaundiced ... that was the only word to describe it.
My gaze was now hungry for my face. A simple thing, an honest face of course, still young and fresh looking but composed in a serious and contemplative expression. I twisted my neck to the left to catch a gaze at my profile, there my eyes met the line of my jaw. It seemed pressed forward somehow, the look seemed a bit too proud for the way a young lady ought to look but hybris as always been my favored sin.
Still, the jaw jutted a bit much, perhaps smoothly but there was something almost inhuman about the way it trust forward from the rest of my face.
How could I have not seen this before? I was almost a caricature, it was Neanderthalish, all I needed was a sloping brow and fur skin garment. My eye lids pressed together to study this abnormality and it only heightened the effect. Oh, no wonder people could not take me seriously as an intellectual, I had this horrid defect that made me resemble the earliest of upright primates. How could one respect such a creature?
I leaned forward, hoping that further scrutiny would reveal this to be merely a trick of light and shadow - but what was this? That smooth skin suddenly was covered with bumps and potholes. I stared at my nose, that gigantic specimen only inches from the mirror seemed rutted and blotched and, worse, underneath the right nostril was a festering sore. Oh, it was disgusting to view but I could not look away. The pestilence bubbled under my skin, waiting to burst its thick fluids on an unsuspecting populous.
Here, truly, was the cause of my shunning by my peers during my high school years for no sane person would be within ten paces of a sore covered, pasty and devolved specimen as myself.
But there had to be something - anything that was remotely attractive about me. Something that pleased the eye perhaps?
I drew back from the mirror and my heart dropped at the sight of my own form. Women are often said to be hypercritical of their appearance, society it content to mold female flesh to its pleasure and rare is the woman that can fit tight model of collective beauty so I would have been content with a few flaws in my figure.
This was not to be.
Before me stood a creature barely wanting of a first glance, let alone a second. It's tiny head balanced atop an ungainly, bulbous body. It had no 'shape' - not even the pleasant contrivance of apple, pear or hourglass but seemed instead a series of oddly placed lumps. Its arms puffed out but were merely sticks compared to the rotund mass of flesh the torso created. The legs seemed fine enough until you realized they were a foot too short, two compact midget legs carrying this rolling, seething, swaying, rambling weight.
The skin sagged under the weight and stretched until it was painful to behold.
I turned my head but not before appraising the clothes this creature (for I could not honestly, at this point, count myself among the human race) covered itself with. I was thankful they existed for no one should have to gaze upon me in the state nature created. That was the extent of my pleasure with the garments.
The charcoal slacks and navy t-shirt contrasted with the pallor of its skin and made the beast seem only more ill. They, blissfully, encased the worse of the torso. Baggy? Yes, but it shielded all eyes from the oddities that sprang underneath.
With only this to console me I looked away completely. Dejected and despised by my own butcher blue globes, sloughing into the tight cave of my room to hide from the sight of humanity.
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
This, and other meaningless posts, was brought to you by the Brown Paper Bag Company.
At the suggestion of another board member I decided to do a bit of physical self-inventory. This is a rare occurrence in my daily routine, stopping to just look at myself has always reeked of a form of vanity; that self-indulgence of making what I think, and what I say, and what I look like into something of actual importance.
Mirrors are not the best of friends. Not because they are too honest but they lack any perspective but your own. I glanced slowly at first into that clear, reflective glass and then a slight frown descended on my lips as my gaze narrowed to various spots and areas. Was I being too self critical or was I simply seeing myself as others saw me?
The first thing I noticed was the tone of my skin; I do much to avoid sunlight but what at first seemed a pleasant soft white with a slight hint of olive soon transformed beneath my critical gaze, and revealed my skin as a chalky paste slathered across my features. Worse, like some blind albino snake that had wandered into the sunlit lands, my skin lacked its own pigment and so absorbed the sickly yellow the bathroom light shed. Suddenly, that brush of olive now seemed sinister - Jaundiced ... that was the only word to describe it.
My gaze was now hungry for my face. A simple thing, an honest face of course, still young and fresh looking but composed in a serious and contemplative expression. I twisted my neck to the left to catch a gaze at my profile, there my eyes met the line of my jaw. It seemed pressed forward somehow, the look seemed a bit too proud for the way a young lady ought to look but hybris as always been my favored sin.
Still, the jaw jutted a bit much, perhaps smoothly but there was something almost inhuman about the way it trust forward from the rest of my face.
How could I have not seen this before? I was almost a caricature, it was Neanderthalish, all I needed was a sloping brow and fur skin garment. My eye lids pressed together to study this abnormality and it only heightened the effect. Oh, no wonder people could not take me seriously as an intellectual, I had this horrid defect that made me resemble the earliest of upright primates. How could one respect such a creature?
I leaned forward, hoping that further scrutiny would reveal this to be merely a trick of light and shadow - but what was this? That smooth skin suddenly was covered with bumps and potholes. I stared at my nose, that gigantic specimen only inches from the mirror seemed rutted and blotched and, worse, underneath the right nostril was a festering sore. Oh, it was disgusting to view but I could not look away. The pestilence bubbled under my skin, waiting to burst its thick fluids on an unsuspecting populous.
Here, truly, was the cause of my shunning by my peers during my high school years for no sane person would be within ten paces of a sore covered, pasty and devolved specimen as myself.
But there had to be something - anything that was remotely attractive about me. Something that pleased the eye perhaps?
I drew back from the mirror and my heart dropped at the sight of my own form. Women are often said to be hypercritical of their appearance, society it content to mold female flesh to its pleasure and rare is the woman that can fit tight model of collective beauty so I would have been content with a few flaws in my figure.
This was not to be.
Before me stood a creature barely wanting of a first glance, let alone a second. It's tiny head balanced atop an ungainly, bulbous body. It had no 'shape' - not even the pleasant contrivance of apple, pear or hourglass but seemed instead a series of oddly placed lumps. Its arms puffed out but were merely sticks compared to the rotund mass of flesh the torso created. The legs seemed fine enough until you realized they were a foot too short, two compact midget legs carrying this rolling, seething, swaying, rambling weight.
The skin sagged under the weight and stretched until it was painful to behold.
I turned my head but not before appraising the clothes this creature (for I could not honestly, at this point, count myself among the human race) covered itself with. I was thankful they existed for no one should have to gaze upon me in the state nature created. That was the extent of my pleasure with the garments.
The charcoal slacks and navy t-shirt contrasted with the pallor of its skin and made the beast seem only more ill. They, blissfully, encased the worse of the torso. Baggy? Yes, but it shielded all eyes from the oddities that sprang underneath.
With only this to console me I looked away completely. Dejected and despised by my own butcher blue globes, sloughing into the tight cave of my room to hide from the sight of humanity.
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~This, and other meaningless posts, was brought to you by the Brown Paper Bag Company.
