Girls

[littera_abactor]

The recent spate of genderfuck stories triggered something of an epiphany for me.

I'm no good at being a girl.

I'm happy to be female, yes, and I can't even imagine wanting to be male, but the distance between "female" and "girl" is huge.

Actually, the difference between "female" and "girl" is me.

I can't dress myself. I finally learned what a

Comments

[cmshaw]

i think you're my kind of girl. or, probably (i say this looking around at the internet in this corner), our kind of girl. i am, after all, typing this from a desk which originally began life as a door, turned sideways and set on two filing cabinets. occasionally i pause and consider this desk and tell myself, if you were a real grownup, you'd've painted the door instead of leaving it raw wood before taping it to the filing cabinets.

also, i think that the key to being a grownup is not doing the right thing but having a sense of humor about how often the wrong thing just seems to happen to us.

[littera_abactor]

I feel very close to you right now. Also your desk. It is definitely our kind of desk.

We have three doors that we paid someone to come install two years ago, that we were supposed to paint ourselves. We have not painted them yet. (Actually, we painted half of one of them, so it's now half blue and half raw wood. Doesn't help much.) The guy who put them in was back last summer, and he thought that was really funny.

And we won't even talk about all the "bookshelves" I manufactured out of random flat objects supported by random cubic objects before I discovered the wonders of Ikea. (Say what you will about Ikea, but they make a decent low-cost bookcase. Our only other option at this point would be to pay someone to come build in Gladstone shelves.)

Although I notice we still have a stunning number of books just sort of stacked everywhere. (Which makes me wonder, actually, why I never made a bookcase out of books: two stacks of them supporting one very long one.)

also, i think that the key to being a grownup is not doing the right

[z_rayne]

I'm starting to suspect that, bad though I am at being a girl, I'm even worse at being a grown-up.

I can be a girl. I know all about makeup and slips and matching handbags with shoes. As those who've met me in person can attest, though--waves to maygra and cmshaw--I don't often choose to be one. It requires too much effort. And also pantyhose, which I loathe with a flaming passion that knows no bounds.

However, I do have this deep-seated, nagging feeling that someday someone is going to realize I've only been pretending to be a grown-up all these years and I'm going to somehow get in trouble. This is rather a sad state of affairs for someone who's 36 and who has one child nearly old enough to vote.

[littera_abactor]

I know all about makeup and slips and matching handbags with shoes.

Ah-ha! Obviously you're the one who should start the online remedial girl classes, for people who technically have the right chromosomes but somehow missed out on the pantyhose and eyeliner part of their education.

However, I do have this deep-seated, nagging feeling that someday someone is going to realize I've only been pretending to be a grown-up all these years and I'm going to somehow get in trouble.

Oh my god. Me too. So very, very much.

When we went to sign the escrow papers on our house, I thought for sure they'd realize we weren't real grown-ups and not let us buy it after all.

It did not help that we showed up at the escrow place looking like farmers. The escrow place was very nice, with plants and expensive rugs and real antiques inside (antiques! in an office!) and all manner of landscaping outside and even a fountain, and of course every single person who worked there was a woman in perfectly coordinated and accessorized attire. We were wearing

[z_rayne]

I learned all of my girl stuff from my grandmother, who was a) born in 1915, and b) worked for 30+ years in the women's clothing industry as a saleswoman for a reasonably high-end clothing outlet. *g*

Well, everything except for the make-up knowledge, which came out of me being a teenager in the early 1980s, when everyone--boys included--wore make-up. What's funny is that my daughter, who's more of a girly-girl than I've ever been, needs me to put her make-up on for her, on the extremely infrequent occasions when she wears it. Heck, my 9-year-old son wears make-up more often than his sister does.

I have managed to influence her girly-girlness in positive ways, I think. For instance, I started on the "don't shave your legs" mantra while she was still very young, and to this day she doesn't do it. The hair on her legs is still fine and blonde, and will probably always be that way so long as she doesn't start shaving it. I think that this alone qualifies me for some kind of good mother award. *g*

So. I guess this feeling isn't going

[z_rayne]

Obviously you're the one who should start the online remedial girl classes,

Lesson #1: Make-up. A lot about the make-up you wear depends on your coloring, your personality, and what you're going to be doing. If you want to learn about wearing make-up, I recommend going to the make-up counter at a decent department store (Macy's, Joslins, May Co., etc.) and asking one of the girls to do your face. I don't wear make-up on a daily basis anymore, but when I do wear it my minimum tends to be mascara and faintly tinted lip-gloss. The older you get the more you want to stay away from sparkly eyeshadows, as they make your eyes look older. You can never go wrong with subtle, neutral colors.

Lesson #2: Slips. Just like bras, slips come in multiple colors and it's a good idea to have at least three half-slips (the ones that are skirt-like, rather than dress-like)--white, neutral/beige, and black. This ensures you can match your slip to your skirt. Never, ever wear a slip instead of a skirt, no matter what all the popular girls are doing; you

Re: Don't feel bad...

[littera_abactor]

Oh, lord, I love sitting cross-legged. Even in chairs. It's my default sitting posture, and if clothes prevent me from doing it, they tend not to get worn much.

Otherwise, clothing for me should be comfortable. And often that isn't women's clothing.

*glooms*

So true. Let's not talk about the torture that is high heels. Or pantyhose or tights on a hot day. And remember, our clothes tend to cost more, so we're paying extra to be uncomfortable.

Jeez. No wonder I avoid shopping for clothes. It makes me curmudgeonly, apparently.

[fanofall]

We love you. You're not bad at being a girl, you're bad at being a *girly-girl*. Totally different. And quite frankly, the ability to match shoes and handbags is only important if you circulate in the sorts of places where you need to match your shoes and your handbags. You and BB do not circulate in those places. Therefore, that is an unnecessary skill.

Shoes on the wrong foot, though, you might want to consider double-checking before you leave the house. Not because you look silly (who cares) but because you may trip and fall and hurt yourself (and that's bad).

[littera_abactor]

You're not bad at being a girl, you're bad at being a *girly-girl*.

That doesn't sound so bad. Actually, "girly-girl" sounds vaguely...pejorative. It does, right? And now I'm wondering if "manly man" has the same negative connotation for men.

You and BB do not circulate in those places.

Entirely true, at least in part because they wouldn't let us in to those places. (And also partly because you'd have to drag me in kicking and screaming - really, it's been tried, although I admit I was much younger - and those folks are not big fans of the shrieking tantrum.)

Although, come to think of it, BB moves in those circles all the time, for work. But I don't have to, thank god.

Shoes on the wrong foot, though, you might want to consider double-checking before you leave the house.

In the future, I will. I just thought I was past all that - that I'd outgrown forgetting to wear panties to school (as I did in elementary school, more than once) or putting on different colored socks. But I am evidently not.

Still, you'd think I'd've

[maygra]

I agree. Girly-girls are different than just girls. I may be the latter but not the former. (However, I studied acting. I can fake it if I have to.)

although, my sister (the one who got the style/color gene) has a daughter who is definitely a girly-girl and she's amazingingly *good* at it. However, my sister and I often stare at each other and wonder how it happened. To the point where I once asked my sis if she was sure there wasn't somepoint in there where maybe she confused the mailman or the paper delivery guy with her husband. She's pretty sure she didn't and it helps that Niece#2 looks amazingly like her father (only girly) but sometimes, we wonder.

[karma_aster]

Oh lord...this all sounds so familiar. I can do the girl stuff, I guess. I have nice manicured nails and I know about proper foundation garments and I can do very basic makeup on the rare occasions that I wear it, but I find girly stuff kinda boring and I'm not really very good at it.

And it doesn't help that I work in a kinda-old-fashioned office with other women who are way more feminine than me. And all involved in long-term relationships and/or married while I'm over here with my geekiness and my English degree and knowing quite well that I am the geeky, single freak of the place.

And none of them are overtly friendly or even particuarly nice. And nothing I do is ever good enough. Dammit, I baked brownies for these people. I work hard. I don't tell them exactly what I really think of them. I mean, what's it gonna take?

(depressed)I hate my job.

[littera_abactor]

I find girly stuff kinda boring and I'm not really very good at it.

I nearly became a relative-by-marriage to a woman who spent two hours every night on her nails alone, using a professional manicure kit and everything. Her mother said that I "could spend more time on myself," and I was like, well, but if I spent the same kind of time you and your daughter do, I would never accomplish anything, and I would die of boredom.

Ha. That's the problem. Girl maintenance activities are dull.

And it doesn't help that I work in a kinda-old-fashioned office with other women who are way more feminine than me. And all involved in long-term relationships and/or married while I'm over here with my geekiness and my English degree and knowing quite well that I am the geeky, single freak of the place.

Oh, lord. I've been there. Briefly. Being the office weirdo can suck in some fields. And, frankly? If your co-workers cannot be won over by brownies, they don't deserve you