Thursday ramble

I--I'm nothing if not transparent--barely passed Christian Science Monitor's scientific literacy test, which briefly made me feel like an inadequate human being, until I shrugged it off. Not because I didn't want to know more, but because my value as a human does not rest upon knowing the difference between watts or joules and symbols and constants. The irony was, I performed the worst on biology, which is what I once knew the most about. But if you don't keep on that stuff, you forget it. And that's pretty much okay as long as you get enough of it to make sense of things. And there's a difference between getting things and remembering names of things.

Humor me as I spin this into an analogy, the connecting premise being one of multiple things going on: the deficiency itself; how I feel about it; how it makes me feel about me; and whether I care what other people think. To repeat: I don't know a lot about science; I'd like to know more about science; but I'm not a bad person for not knowing what I don't; and I generally don't care whether others think less of me for what I don't know, and I'm pretty sure no one cares. And whatever demons I have in that regard can only be quelled by me alone; anyone else's reassurance isn't going to do it.


I have chunky limbs for someone of my size. I don't mind my chunky limbs--they're chunky because they're muscly--and I care neither for the views of people who find that unfeminine or unattractive, nor for the views of people who find it trendy and attractive. I've found sanity in neither loving or hating my body and, as I said the other day, I agree that women--to the extent that they manage their appearance--manage it for themselves, not for what dudes think. But I can certainly catch myself finding fault with some aspect of my physical appearance or another (which is why I think it's so important to chose the neither-love-nor-hate/just let it be route). And to the extent that I do find fault, no one else's assurance is going to fix that.

But there's another layer--humor me as I now spin this into another JHL epiphany: what a specific dude thinks as a completely different issue from what dudes in general think. This, of course, is the center of many a debate about appearance: what you'd do for an individual versus what you'd do because the male gaze. I don't care what dudes think of my chunky limbs (again, I'm equally indifferent to the dudes who "approve" to those who don't; my limbs are not for them to judge). But, naturally, I couldn't help but think, after the latest JHL encounter, did my arms look chunky when he saw me sitting there? This is all the more absurd because I'm certain that he couldn't care less. Especially now. Even this guy who initially noticed me for how I looked, once he and I had talked, didn't really care--or to the extent that he did, he cared about what I looked like overall, not how chunky my arms might look. And yet, I couldn't help think it.

I've told you before about how mom and WMF and others have emphasized that men don't care how smart you are, and I believed it at the time, but I no longer believe it--at least not for the men I actually want to date. "How smart" is a silly concept, but the key point here is that brains matter. I can't help but invoke the Clooney-Alamuddin engagement as vindication, not because it "validates" her, but because it invalidates the idea that he--brainy as he is--is only interested in appearance when it comes to women. The "he doesn't care how smart you are" dating intelligentsia loved the Clooney example, and now, they'd better find another one, because it turns out he does care.

And JHL did care that I could hold a conversation, that I was interested in things, etc. He probably wouldn't care that I couldn't name all the types of DNA, which doesn't stop me from wanting to know for my own sake. Which is why we're on the same page, or would be, if either of us had the anatomy to call the other.