![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oct. 25th, 2009
eyeliner and asymmetry *
Oct. 25th, 2009 10:56 amWith anything that outlines my eyes, asymmetry really stands out. My right eye is much more open, and looks markedly larger, less guarded, kinder; my left looks smaller, more focused, more predatory.
With a lot of kohl, my left looks better, primary, alive and searching, the right eye the naive tag along not quite sure what she's in for but mistakenly believing she's up for the ride however it goes.
With only a little, my right eye looks better: drawing attention to openness, the warmer, kinder gaze, the left inclined to look askance, out of place, cynically guarded against some other weakness.
I don't usually look in mirrors much. That's probably one of the reasons I don't wear much make up; I don't want to face my reflection for that long. The asymmetry of my eyes has always struck me as immediately noticeable, impossible to miss. It makes me self conscious, makes me feel like a less balanced composite than most, a poorly stitched together science project of "what if". But my eyes, mismatched as they are (but not as much or as strikingly as some), are probably my best feature, so I draw attention to them, to the sometimes unsettling weight of their collective gaze. Interestingly, I break eye contact less, slip away less often, when kohled. That probably means something.
*well, technically kohl, but that's less assonant
With a lot of kohl, my left looks better, primary, alive and searching, the right eye the naive tag along not quite sure what she's in for but mistakenly believing she's up for the ride however it goes.
With only a little, my right eye looks better: drawing attention to openness, the warmer, kinder gaze, the left inclined to look askance, out of place, cynically guarded against some other weakness.
I don't usually look in mirrors much. That's probably one of the reasons I don't wear much make up; I don't want to face my reflection for that long. The asymmetry of my eyes has always struck me as immediately noticeable, impossible to miss. It makes me self conscious, makes me feel like a less balanced composite than most, a poorly stitched together science project of "what if". But my eyes, mismatched as they are (but not as much or as strikingly as some), are probably my best feature, so I draw attention to them, to the sometimes unsettling weight of their collective gaze. Interestingly, I break eye contact less, slip away less often, when kohled. That probably means something.
*well, technically kohl, but that's less assonant
back here again
Oct. 25th, 2009 05:55 pmSo, I'm at that point again where an acquaintance/potential friend has expressed interest in becoming something closer to an actual friend, and I'm wondering when and how to have that awkward conversation: "Yeah, you know, those things you probably think about me, or don't even think about but just assume I'm cut from the same cloth as just about everyone else you've ever met? Yeah... well, I'm not."
I hate having to have those conversations. It's not fair to me. To the uneducated, unquestioning eye, I look like a guy. I hate that; my body doesn't do what I want it to, even with endocrinological intervention (another issue about which I'm bitterly unhappy, and have whined at great length elsewhere). Clothed, there's no reason for anyone to assume I'm not what they think I am, and I'm not in the habit of disrobing to prove a point. No, I've got to say something, and it doesn't really get any easier.
It summons up all the anger and frustration I feel about a dearth of categories, a possibility of different signs, different options, of a failure of interpretation because no one knows to look for anything other than the expected, the unquestioned. It makes me hate the structural straight jacket, and it makes me feel like I'm failing in some way, like it's my fault things aren't clear at sight or by behavior, even though I know it's (probably) not.
Fuck, at least in this case, it would be so much easier if I was gay.
I hate having to have those conversations. It's not fair to me. To the uneducated, unquestioning eye, I look like a guy. I hate that; my body doesn't do what I want it to, even with endocrinological intervention (another issue about which I'm bitterly unhappy, and have whined at great length elsewhere). Clothed, there's no reason for anyone to assume I'm not what they think I am, and I'm not in the habit of disrobing to prove a point. No, I've got to say something, and it doesn't really get any easier.
It summons up all the anger and frustration I feel about a dearth of categories, a possibility of different signs, different options, of a failure of interpretation because no one knows to look for anything other than the expected, the unquestioned. It makes me hate the structural straight jacket, and it makes me feel like I'm failing in some way, like it's my fault things aren't clear at sight or by behavior, even though I know it's (probably) not.
Fuck, at least in this case, it would be so much easier if I was gay.