I didn't smile till I was 17

That's obviously a lie (see baby picture), but smiling is now a habit I formed at 17. I never thought I was frowning, or scowling or something, but my face as relaxed looked... unhappy? intimidating? pissed? stoic? I'm not sure. People were always telling me to smile. It's still a phrase that pisses me off, with the ineffective comeback of "you fucking smile".

Eventually I realized that if I was going ot be fitting into this world, this 'christian, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy' (thanks bell hooks) world that we all live in, I was going to have to smile.

And let me tell you, it works. People still say stupid shit to me, you can't really help that, I suppose I say stupid shit to people as well, but fucking smiling puts people at such ease. Even when you are insulting them.

Now, is this some sort of betrayal? Am I abusing/using my status as 'female' and 'pretty' by manipulating people? Oftentimes I'm seen as being flirty when I'm, just being friendly. Eye contact and a smile are now one of my ways of acknowledging people, this does not mean I want to jumps your bones, or lady wood.

I guess smiling is just a societally accepted and expected mannerism for women to have. I was treated as strange without this mannerism, I adopted it and became more acceptable. Is this a betrayal of myself? Of other non-smiley women? Is this the same type of betrayal as my calling myself 'Jane' and not dealing with the strange reception of my legal name?

What other ways have I changed myself to make myself more socially acceptable? We all do it, we need to fit in and make everything work, 'get 'er done' and all. I just seem to be more acutely aware of what parts of myself I seem to be giving up in order to fit into this crappy christian, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal society that we all live in.

It's not acceptable to be sad, emotional at all really, to be late, to daydream, to be alone, to not want money, to not want objects, to not want status, to stand out in unaccepted ways; if you must be different be quiet about it. the specifics of acceptability vary through different communities with the mainstream American one not accepting variations in gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, outside of their proscribed boxes. One way of combating this is to keep pushing at the edges of the boxes and expanding them. The box for black people was expanded to include athletic ability, then musical ability, orating ability, and soon political ability, but the boxes don't seem to be disappearing. The box for gay people was expanded through the show "Queer Eye" and other TV shows, it's been said our brains need these boxes to make sense of informational input. And so, in order to be accepted you have to fit into whatever box people generally see you as fitting into.

Therefore, here I am at 25 having a bad day at a job I was hired for because of my smileyness. what effect does it have on my psyche to now be smiling when I was to glare at all the people? I don't even want to read the study on airline stewardess (that's not the article I was thinking of, it was all I could find quickly, like I said I don't think I want to read it right now).

But ok, whatever, if everyone else it doing it I might as well hop on in, kind of like a zombie attack, it's just so much easier to be one of them than to constantly battle the hordes of the undead. After all, once you are one of them they no longer try to eat your brains.

What's with the bandage?

Written April 29th, 2008

If We had Known You Were Going to Be a Writer, We Would Have Been Nicer to You

I have one baby picture of myself, I found it in my sister's house and took it, scanned it, and gave it back to her. I'm a toddler, 3 and half or so, so happy and holding up my new baby doll- Viva. I am grinning madly with a giant bandage on my head. I am a cutie pie, I figure I'm pretty high on painkillers.

One of those surgeries, I suspect the one in the picture, is in my first memory. I'm laying on the table, maybe I'm being restrained, but I'm laying on my back. The doctor is explaining what is going to happen: I get the shot, I'm asleep before they count to 10, and before I know it I'll be waking up in my fathers arms.

It sounded good, I never got to see my dad that much, but I really didn't want that shot, "it's not going to hurt at all..." That line, whatta line. I went down screaming, I was really mad he lied to me. It hurt pretty bad, but I was out real quick. I didn't wake up in my fathers arms though; the first time I had doctors looking over me, then I was in a room and my dad was sitting and reading nearby.

I hated hospitals for a long time, the smells, the pain, the lies... I'm still bitter on that. I know I was just a bratty kid that they needed to knock out so they could crack my head open, but did they have to lie? They could have to told me to suck it up cause it would be quick, it's my oldest memory for godsake, does it have to be of a lie? My parents got me the dolly to keep me company in the hospital, it took friends when I was older to point out she was black. So? One of those friends had the white version, sooo not as cute. When asked my mom admitted that all the black baby dolls were on sale, I've heard of this phenomenon before (it's documented in a heartfelt story on This American Life). The visual of American KKKonsumers turning their backs on black dolls as a representation for the way America treats black people never fails to piss me off.

I got over my distrust of hospitals, I ended up spending a lot of time in them, not for myself. My mom worked in them of course, but she was also bi-polar. Every few years she checked herself into the mental hospital, rested, got her all her medications upped and balanced. I would visit when I could, bring clothes and books (no hangars! No shoelaces! No belts!), but you have to be of a certain age to be allowed in. When I was too young I would watch everyone else go through these secure doors and I would wait outside. I spent the time peeking through the window, spying on shuffley people wandering or standing awkwardly, spacily, in a sterile hallway, fluorescent lighting, you know the deal. I waited, trying not to stare, smiling at the people that walked by, surrounded by that smell and the hospital workers. Recieving curious looks, trying to look innocent, or transparent so I wouldn't taken away for another surgery, you know the deal.

I'm lucky though, a lot of people who struggle with depression, anxiety, bi-polar, or other 'disorders' turn to drugs to deal. Well, my mom was always highly medicated, but at least she put it into the doctors hands, instead of whiskeys hands or something. Or rather, the doctor and god. Most women in my family have been hospitalized, locked up, at one point or another, my distrust of people in the medical profession kept me out.

So yeah, as I got older I got a lot healthier with most of my problems stemming from a slight scoliosis in my spine. Luckily I've probably spent more time in hospitals visiting people and keeping them company than actually being worked on myself, but those first few years definitely had an impact.