Hair! (Results version)

I love my new hair so much, I cannot even say. I put myself into the stylist's hands, said "funky," said "asymmetrical," said "not shorter than my chin," and let her get to work. You have no idea how much hair there was on the floor. I have been growing my hair pretty much uninterrupted since I was thirteen. Now it grazes my shoulders. And that's the longest layer. There are layers no longer than four inches (when the curl's unstretched). There are teeny-tiny short curls around my face. The asymmetry is pronounced. It's sweet and fluffy and funky. I am done with shapeless teenage-girl hair forever. It is sassy-twentysomething hair. It is fantastic. Also, it is like big arrows pointing at my cheekbones and jawline. Whee. Hair.

The other day there was a fat activism workshop on my college campus. The Feminist Student Union and the Queer Alliance publicized it sort of halfheartedly. My thriftshop-planning partner couldn't make it, but wanted me to go to chat up the activists, who are tied into the Portland fat activism organizations. I went. I was the only fat person, other than the people who were giving the workshop.

It was...fine? I wished, passionately, that the women presenting had been better public speakers. This is my own work-within-the-system preference, but I hate playing into stereotypes, and fat people are constantly at risk of seeming unprofessional and having that chalked up to their fatness. These women are not professional public speakers. Maybe that means that they shouldn't be representing their organizations in this medium. I'm not sure. I wanted to yelp, "stop saying, 'you know?' right now!" But the discussion was pretty free and pretty fun, and that it was happening was nice, and I met a staff member who's doing her dissertation on representations of fatness...especially in advertising and fashion. Which is to say, all the things I like best. We stood around afterwards and talked about Susan Bordo and Fatshionista and my thrift store plans and her dissertation. The idea of "fat studies" is really gathering steam as an academic field. There's a conference at Smith coming up this month. I really might be interested in that, but I wouldn't want to do it exclusively. I'd want to do it in the context of the way I'm working with things like canonicity and cultural identity in my thesis. I wonder if talking about fat studies in my personal statements to grad schools would make me a more (innovative!) or less (...fat) attractive candidate for admission to said grad schools.

It is a sign of such intense weakness that my abs are sore from the minimal yoga I am doing twice a week. Can I blame it on surgery? Bah. My legs have always been tough, because I walk a lot and I'm carrying my own weight when I do it, but the rest of me? Not so much. I am looking forward to working on that, so the soreness is probably positive.

And by the way? I love my hair.