Jessmiloo’s Neighborhood

How do you find out about new artists and bands you might like?

It's a list, list day...

1. students
2. coworkers (mostly at the bar, but also at the colleges)
3. pandora
4. internetting, while I'm supposed to be doing homework
5. friends
   

Which yet-to-be-released movie are you excited to see?

1. Get Smart
2. The Dark Knight
3. Baby Mama
4. Narnia: Prince Caspian
5. Hellboy II (but I finally need to watch the first one first)
   

What's your "go-to" movie?  The one you watch when you need to just get away from it all?
Submitted by uncagedbird.

1. Fried Green Tomatoes
2. Firefly - the series
3. Serenity
4. Kissing Jessica Stein
5. Queer as Folk - the series
6. ...
   

So I've been hairy-legged for nigh on a decade now. Up through my divorce coming in final, I was a faithful shaver of all gender-prescribed parts, going so far as to re-shave all of it every 3 days, sometimes every day. (Which seems excessive to me, but then I think to myself, well hell, maybe all shaving women shave every fucking day. Sheesh.) When my X left, even though I'd spent years pretzeling myself around to get him to stay, I pretty much decided that from then on out, I'd just as soon get rejected for the woman I am, rather than for any number of someones I'm not.

The decision to give up spending money on razor after razor after shaving cream after after-shaving-lotion in the pursuit of a scrape/razor-burn-free life was easy to make. I had been raised in one of the many hippie capitals of the midwest, a child of the family-therapy and second-wave feminist movements, so I had no shortage of models for the choice, and no lack of friends who dug it. The guy I was dating at the time was a huuuuuge fan of the natural woman, so that was nice, too.

Not to say it wasn't nervewracking that first summer, taking my hairy legs out into the world. Having hairy armpits wasn't a problem at all, for some reason, perhaps because they're just terribly cute hair armpits. People look really weird at hairy legs on a girl, though, and I was definitely self-conscious, especially waiting tables, where your look has a lot to do with your overall pursuit of twenty percent. But the sheer delight of feeling the breeze making the hairs tickle my legs, combined with the remarkable increase in a sense of self-worth that arises from choosing my body as it naturally occurs--that made it hugely worth any social anxiety. I fairly quickly got over any worries, and just let people feel weirded out as they needed to. Their weirdness tends to arise and fall away with reasonable speed, anyway.

Teaching has me thinking about shaving again, though. I dress pretty casually to teach, but I do some version of business casual, especially at the Community College. The cutie outfits I want to buy and wear (if I ever earn enough money to go shopping) simply don't jive with a hairy-legged aesthetic (I will not be shaving my cutie pits), and I'm also not sure I want to put up yet another 'Bodhibound's weird' block for my students to have to grapple with. So I'm thinking about it.

And I get all girly-excited about the pretty skirts I might wear, and all tired-adult excited about not having to deal with an extra level of other people thinking I'm odd. But then I get sad--I think of my legs, which received so much of the short end of the stick of my self-loathing over the years, until I stopped shaving them, which demanded that I confront that I had no right to be so mean to an actual part of my own body. And I get sad--I think of the other girlies out there who actually think that a woman with hairy legs seems somehow unnatural, un-womanine, as if our bodies in their natural state could possibly be unfuckingnatural, the girlies for whom I hope I pose just a teeny little gentle challenge to that kind of normative self-hate.

Sigh. Any thoughts?

heeeeelp !! 

... i'm really at a loss now .. at first i was leaning towards hilary, then i found myself leaning towards bahama momma, or what the hell ever his name is .. now i have no clue wtf's going on
.. my only concern is the one who has the better health issues plan .. the one who can provide health care to all, or at least for those who truly need it ..

ya, i know, they're politicians, so they're all full of shit and nothing of what they say they'll do will happen anyway ..

can any1 give a quick run down of which of the two might actually care that some of us don't have insurance, or can't afford it, and truly need it ? maybe have something similar to what canada has in mind ?

My husband just sent me a text saying that his work (a factory) is going to four long days a week instead of five eight hour days, to help the employees save on gas.

Oh, sure, everything's fine.  The common man isn't getting pinched into oblivion.  The middle class isn't eroding.  Look at the statistics, our gross national profit is going up!  There are less people on unemployment!  Everything will be fine!  Only our gross national profit includes everything from hospital fees to collections- so does it really tell us anything of value about how our economy is doing?  And as for people going off of unemployment- you're booted off automatically after six months.  So do we really know that all of those people got jobs?

God.  I am so sick to my stomach right now.

I'm planning on visiting my grandma either today or tomorrow if she answers the phone (she doesn't always answer when she's quilting and the phone is in the other room).  I guess I'll be walking.

Somebody's got to stop using all the gas.  Might as well be me.

Show us what you're working on right now.
Submitted by yygall.

I actually just finished it:

MouseAndCatFINAL

THAT I LOVE SINGSTAR?!?!?!

This is the bestest PS2 game EVAH! Andy and I have so much fun playing and Stephan likes dancing and laughing at mommie and daddie being total goofballs. We have Singstar Pop and 80's and want to get the 90's one too. I also want to plan a party and invite everyone over for a little Singstar fun. I'm not so good with the 80's songs. I wasn't aware enough then to know the songs so I don't know the words and they are super hard to sing and attempt to match the notes (not like I'm good at that anyway but some of those artists do some crazy hard stuff in their songs). My favorite is Singstar Pop. I love to have fun with Britney and Destiny's Child and Whitney. Andy and I actually do pretty good with The Fray and 3 Door Down and Snow Patrol. We got Lead Singer status tonight on Cable Car!

Enough ... I sound like a gushing tween. <embarrassed giggle>

Love: 

That our house will be going on the market finally next week!  Now we have to hope it sells.

Looking for a new house.

Reading my old books with M.

Feeling my baby boy kick up a storm the last couple days.

My new iPod Touch I got for Mom's Day.

Warm weather expected the next couple days.

Loathes:

Feeling so uncomfortable at night when I am trying to sleep.

Being so busy that my head spins.

The fact G will probably not be going with us next weekend.

Having to pee all the dang time.