I'm experimenting with creating links.

Here's a really infantile blog I created about hot dogs. It's still under construction.

Lady Gaga made this video just for me (I bet this song is about me)

I'm just practicing posting videos since I haven't done it for so long. However, this song actuall gives you some interesting things to think about in terms of vanity and celebrity.

Obviously I'm not vain enough

I'm going to pretend that hundreds of people, all my imaginary blog followers, have been extremely disappointed to find that I have not posted anything since last April. I'm sure you'll get over the devastation someday.

I haven't been doing any experiments lately, no staring at myself in the mirror for an hour without looking away, no hair removal, no experiments with mirrors. It seems that I may have forgotten about my vanity. So now it's time to come back face to face with it. I suppose that's the only way to do it.

While I haven't been reflecting on my reflection much lately, I have been recording my own voice from time to time. I just listened to a long message I left for my significant other the other day, and I was appalled at how slowly I speak. Even when I try to speak quickly, it somehow comes out more slowly than how I heard it in my head. And this is actually affecting the way I communicate. I'm making the effort to speed up a little bit. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, my rate of speech is reflective of my rate of thought. I ponder things, and sometimes I ponder them aloud, while I am talking to people. When I have recorded myself doing this, I get really bored listening to myself. It's only appropriate to think that maybe other people think the same thing. I suppose some of my students feel the same way about being in my classes.

However, I think most people listen to me when I talk, and I can judge by their reactions that they are also engaged in the conversation. They laugh when I think they'll laugh, they groan at a bad joke when I think they might groan at a bad joke; all in all, things seem to be ok until I listen to my recorded voice. I wonder if we're so used to hearing recorded voices coming at the speed of light (listen to radio ads, talk radio, MTV, the news) that hearing "non-professional" speakers just seems really slow. I've decided, though, that speaking slowly isn't really a problem, as long as I say interesting things.

Hair Removal

Why is it that in general, our society is so obsessed with hair removal? So many people go to such great lengths (see: brazilian waxing) to make sure that normal, naturally grown hair is removed from most parts of their bodies. I don't neccessarily have a problem with that, as I generally prefer when women shave their legs and armpits, at least.

So, if that's the case, why have I been so stubborn about "reclaiming my manliness" (I guess that's what you would call it) by not trimming up my chest hair? This is the point where, if you are one of my students, you might not want to read further, unless you want to see me differently next time we have class. But, none of it is overly embarrassing, and I think I might come to some sort of interesting point near the end.

I am not an exceptionally hairy guy on most parts of my body. Arms are pretty normal, maybe even sparser than most. Legs are pretty normal, except for the strange albino patch of skin and hair, about 4 square inches of surface area, just above my right foot, but that just makes the skin a little lighter, and the hair has no pigment. No one has ever noticed it unless I point it out. My neck's pretty normal, with a little bit of excess hair that needs to be shaved every couple of weeks, but it wouldn't make anybody puke if I just left it there. Butt, unfortunately, has a bit, but if you're more than 20 feet away, you won't really see it. And if you're up close enough to see it, you're probably wondering why you're in my presence when I'm naked.

But then there's my chest. Even though my brothers are probably hairier, one trims up on a regular basis, and the other has Chuck Norris style reddish hair, so it basically blends in with his skin, at least when he's tan (he's a lifeguard, so it happens). I, on the other hand, have dark hair and fairly white skin. Not pasty white, but white enough to see a pretty big contrast, unless I've been hanging out on the beach on a regular basis. I tan up pretty well. However, it' April, and it just snowed today, so I think it's safe to say that I'm about as white as I can be at the moment without bathing in whatever it is that Michael Jackson swims in.

So, back to the chest hair. It's longer than chest hair should be. No, I cannot braid it. No, I do not comb it. I suppose with the right product, I could part it down the middle or style it in a number of ways. But today, I said enough is enough, and I took the trimmer to it. It wasn't traumatic. I just did it, and now I look more like a pig than I did before. Before, I was some kind of jungle beast. Now, I'm just a guy who's a bit overweight, not quite toned. After I did it, I noticed that I have far more prowess when it comes to the Truffle Shuffle than I realized. Hair tends to hide some of the jiggle factor. Not to say I'm fat, but I've got a few more extra pounds than I realized.

So, what's the point of all this rambling? I've decided that hair removal is just like taking care of your yard. You trim sometimes if you want to, but some people simply prefer a more natural look. I think those who trim are in the majority, but some of them simply put up with the untrimminess, not taking a strong stance one way or another. Ultimately, this trimming session has motivated me to keep getting into the gym to shed off a few more pounds, which will make me healthier, thus happier. And I actually enjoy going to the gym, so I'm not performing some feat of masochistic vanity when I go.

And that's what it all boils down to, I guess. If your hair ain't hurtin' anybody, then let it flow freely or trim it up. For me, it seems that experimenting with depilatory techniques might make me healthier and more attractive, thus, probably, more happy. I always thought it would take hours to trim up, but it only took about 5 minutes, so I don't have that excuse anymore.

The thing that sucks is that my whole damn chest is itchy, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Would have been worse had I razored it off. Hmmm, so maybe this discomfort will detract a little from my happiness, but all in all, it might have been a good decision. This decision does, however, change my identity to a certain extent. No longer can my friends call it "The sweater" or "the natural cardigan". No longer, when I go swimming over at a buddy's house, will they be able to say, "Dude, it's frickin' 97 degrees. Why are you wearing a sweater?" Or, "Hey, man, do your girlfriends hands ever get tangled up in your Chestfro?" Because I was always comfortable with the good-natured ribbing and my own body, we'll all lose a few laughs. I guess we'll just have to wax (pun certainly intended) nostalgic about the good ol' hairy days.

Fun with mirrors gone bad

I haven't been here for while, so I'll aplogize a little, mostly to myself, since very few people continue to read blogs when there are no new posts for months at a time.

I'm going to add a video to the post. I found it on youtube. Surprise, surprise. I'm in a coffee shop right now, and I forgot to bring my headphones, so I haven't listened to the audio on the video, but I don't think you need it. However, it might be funny. I was more interested in the images, of course. And as the guy in the video played around with various head angles, I started recognizing all the strange-looking people I've ever met. The guy whose mouth is too small. The one whose forehead is too big. The one with eyes at the wrong angles, droopy or slanty (but not the ones with one eye that's higher than the other, like Sloth's on the Goonies). The one whose neck is thicker than his head. The one whose entire face is just too small. You've seen them, too.

There is something disturbing about a face that is too symmetrical. I think that is why plastic surgery freaks me out, or at least the Joan Rivers type, where it looks like she's wearing some sort of silicone mask that she puts in a jar by the door when she gets home. And so Paul McCartney doesn't sue me, yeah, that "jar by the door" line is from Eleanor Rigby.

Eyes vs. Hair

My girlfriend has mentioned on numerous occasions that she thinks I like to look in the mirror. I suppose that’s true, and I’m trying to figure out it if is more a product of vanity or curiosity. I have to tell you: I like the color of my eyes. Or maybe I should say the colors of my eyes. Sometimes pale blue, sometimes greenish or “aquamarine” as someone once said, sometimes speckled and grayish. I hate the fact that Word’s spellcheck just changed my spelling of greyish to “grayish.” I hate gray with an A. And it has everything to do with appearance. So now Microsoft is telling me what color my eyes are.

The more I think about my eyes, the more I realize (real eyes) that maybe I like them because other people have told me that they like them. One of them was a former Seagal and former girlfriend of my uncle. I was about 11, and I didn’t take compliments well. I told her that it might be because my contacts have a very slight blueish tint. The tint really doesn’t change the color at all. My mom intervened and told me I should just say “Thanks” and take the compliment. She may have saved me from later dating disasters. Lesson number one: if someone compliments your appearance, don’t explain why you may actually be less attractive than you appear. There is no reason to point out that throbbing zit on your chin. It has been noticed or not. Not is better and still a possibility if you don’t point it out.

Once, I was talking to two friends. We were discussing the features we found attractive in other people, and one friend and I immediately said “eyes.” It seemed like a no-brainer. The third, however, said she was attracted to hair and didn’t think much about eyes. It seemed odd to me somehow. Aren’t the eyes the most important? Isn’t that where you can read someone best? But she pointed out that both of us who had said “eyes” had “beautiful eyes.” The third had rather squinty eyes and were a color I don’t think I actually ever saw. But she had long, thick hair.

Really, I should not like my eyes very much. They don’t work properly. Without my contacts or glasses, I cannot read a normal-sized book unless it is less than 5 inches from my face. In public, I would never recognize anyone I knew until they were less than 10 feet from me. This could lead to bitter misunderstandings and hurt feelings. But for some reason, I am not ashamed of this defect because other people can’t see my myopia. I suppose people who are blind from birth form their self-image in other ways. That could be good or bad, I suppose, depending on whether they are surrounded by assholes or by loving relatives.

Reflection on writing on reflection

I’ve had teachers say, “reflect on it in writing.” I’ve written similar things on papers my students turn in to me. Sometimes I think I know what it means, that somehow seeing my thoughts on paper—seeing my thoughts on paper (that’s not really what it is)—is a reflection. That I am somehow looking at myself as my thoughts appear on paper. But once they are on paper, they aren’t really my thoughts. They are words, which are like thoughts, but not perfectly.

I cannot really translate my thoughts well. They are, shall we say, “multimedia.” There are songs and layers and images and ticking noises and slideshows and fragmented videos and people that meld together and even dancing midgets and talking monkeys sometimes. Sometimes they leak and ooze and freeze and explode or rot. Sometimes they simply disappear. Sometimes they are in Spanish. No, these “thoughts” on paper are not really my thoughts. I am far more scattered. Asi es la vida.

And much of the time, this paper is not even paper. If I could feed leaves through my printer without totally fucking it up, I would put my thoughts on leaves, my non-thoughts on leaves or maybe rocks. Then my thoughts could literally blow away in the wind, or I could throw one in a lake and let it sink to the bottom, or perhaps even more violent things. But somehow I think real thoughts are more buoyant. They keep coming up—or at least I think they are coming up, surfacing—like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot or Dracula. They exist and they don’t and nobody can prove otherwise.

So maybe this is an attempt to prove my existence. This reflection proves my existence? It is far too organized, and I didn’t even get to select the font.