Cheap Therapy and Hot Tips from Beauty Salons and Dentists

I went to the beauty salon the other day. Don't get the wrong impression, by salon, i don't mean five floored luxury spa with wings that each have their own temperate pool where buff tan men in short white shorts offer you lemonades off trays.. i'm sorry what? oh yeah, the salon, or whatever they're called. And don't get another wrong idea, i almost NEVER go to beauty places (you're like: no shit), this was only my third or fourth time my whole life. And no i wont' disclose why... just trust me it was worth it. So the lady who runs the one woman show that is said salon, is Iranian. She's gorgeous. She's kind of half physically gorgeous, and half just so warm and amusing you can't help but want to hear her thick Iranian accent believing everything she tells you about the new mineral make up... Everything about her makes me think of the word honey. She has honey coloured skin, and honey brown eyes, her perfectly coiffed, short 'bob' is streaks of golden honey blonde, very natural, for a dye job. She is perfectly made up, of course, in a nice way, not over the top. And she is fairly small, but a big presence, with spectacles sitting on the bridge of her nose. She is warm and welcoming and immediately feels like your no-nonsense aunt that you love even though she tells things you how things are and what is what. Well, Roya, her name is, has me on the fake leopard skin 'fur' covered salon bed.. and she says to me amid the 'getting to know you' banter 'You have boyfriend!?' She sort of jabs the words at me, not unkindly, matter of factly: 'you have boyfriend!?' she says. 'No' I reply (wait for it..) WHY YOU NO HAVE BOYFRIEND!? she says 'tall, beautiful...? (it's clearly as puzzling to her as anyone)... let me look at your eyebrowz' she says, and lifts her spectacles and peeeeers deep into my occular region. I'm apologizing and saying yes they probably need plucking (you're always cowering with embarrassment around beautiful beauty salon people as you know they are taking you apart and lamenting your complete lack of decorum).. and I'm wondering what ancient iranian astrology can tell about me from my eyebrows.. perhaps the name of my future lover... 'Ah yes' She says, as if it is plain for all to see. 'yes, we shape you eyebrowzz we tint your eyelashes, you get boyfriend'. If only I'd known it was so simple at an earlier date. All I needed was an eyebrow shape and eyelash tint. Shit, for twenty five bucks it seems more than reasonable... Well I left there and went to the dentist. I know. No i do work. just not on thursdays. I saw a deal on group on, and bought it. HIghly risky and i had been imagining all week all the kind of horrific dental atrocities the dentist was probably going to perform on me to try and make money out of me like some backstreet abortion clinic... I really got my defenses up. Turns out the dentist is a pretty nice (for a sadist) Eastern Block lady, maybe russian, called lily. Lily is perfunct and matter of fact and a charactature of herself, with far too long dyed blonde hair, dark roots showing, half a pot of turqouise eye shadow on each eye lide, quirky rectangular spectacles, and a white apron over intersting, but not fashionable, worn out looking dresses, with puffy sleeves that continually drape in my face and smell sweet and of dust. I lie down on lily's blue leather dentist chairs (god i love these chairs!! the ones that go back and up and down and forward like each of their 8 parts moves in complete independance to get you just so underneath the biiiig white light, with a pleasant little humming motor gently whirring against your skin....) there i am saying 'no i haven't been here before' and lily GASPS as she says 'YOU HAVE VERY GOOD TEETH!'. THis is mostly why i came, i've decided. IT's like a kind of all round feel good day for me this day. She says 'you have very good teeth' and i say 'oh really (in that funny way you talk when you're trying not to show your teeth because as soon as someone mentions teeth yours go all shy) and she's saying 'yes, you do, let me look' and thumbing back your lips so she can get a good look at your pearlies and she says: 'do you drink fizzy drink'.. and i get to say 'no, no i NEVER do' (proud as punch) and to add to my own self inflation i say 'i don't really like sweet food'. This makes me feel holier than thou, and lily gives me a, what i think for her is warm, little nod of approval. IT's not true of course. I like russian fudge, and apple crumble, actually any crumble, and very dark chocolate occasoinally, i like anything that tastes like sour apple, like zombie chews or apple lollies, and sour coke bottles, and frozen coke, but only at the movies. But what i mean is, i haven't spent any part of my life consistently gorging on sugary food, and in doing so, i've saved myself aLOT of pain and dental bills. I think that's why i went to the dentist. THen she sands my teeth with a pointed ended electrical saw, or at least that's what it sounds and feels like, that she'd first frozen, and then sharpened to razor sharp point. and then she polishes (is this the same word as polish, as in, from poland, or can i not spell?) them with that chalky, sweet, slightly orange flavoured tooth paste. And i am good to go. Clean pearlies, and only one shape and tint away from true love. Happy days.

holy matrimony batman

Three conversations have coincided this week to make me have a slightly major epiphany. About marriage.

One conversation occurred on a semi-date, making this a legitimate entry onto my blog. (phewphs, i'm trying here people!)

I met a really interesting guy at a friends house, and in this case, I'm not using the words really interesting lightly. Smart, quick witted, easy to talk to, and an artist, oh and a greeny. Tick tick tick. Through our mutual friend he asked me if I would like to go for coffee the next day perhaps? Sounded swell to me. Then after facebook and web stalking him and viewing his art online and genuinely liking it a whole lot, I asked if as well as coffee, I could see his studio. I know what you dirty little monkeys are all thinking, but you can just forget about it. I genuinely wanted to see his art and workspace. You: *smirk*. Me: *rolls eyes* pfft!

So the next day we set off on a perfect, crisp, sunny long weekend day on foot towards town to see his studio (Ak uni, elam). And all the way we talked. Interesting talk. Actually, so interesting and easy that it made me realise how utterly boring most men are. yes you. you are so boring. We, i, women, bend over backwards making conversation puzzle shapes so you can put your conversation puzzle pieces in them. We bring up topics for you to talk about, and do all the right nodding and question asking. God it is all so tedious. But in this case, it was not at all so. I think it is fair to say I might never have met someone so worldly, in the truest sense of the word: so well travelled and broadly knowledged. This AND a great artist. I'm quite taken. I called it a semi-date because it wasn't one of those god-aweful, awkward, contrived, pressurised drink-at-a-bar scenario's. It was more like a really cool hang out. SO ANWYAY god before i lose the point entirely.

Said man, I'll call him the artist, he's got pretty good general knowledge, knows pretty much enough to talk about politics, history, geography, shit.. you name it. And you know, me, well, i'm smart, but i don't KNOW alot of stuff. i know alot about some stuff, but i really missed alot in school. i smoked weed and drew funny pictures of my teachers and wagged and got drunk right when things were getting, what i in hindsight now realise, were fairly critical. like history. ouch i just got a pain in my body even thinking about history class. but now i see, one should really know a little about the major events that occurred in the last few hundred years for example. because they shaped our culture, and our world, they shaped lanuage and art and philosphy and through that, shape today, and me. And besides, you just look dumb when you don't know things. And no body likes dumb people.

So i came home from this enlightening and educational, as well as truly enjoable day, with a bit of a mental list of things i wanted to read up about, you know, homework so to speak, and one of them was marxism.

So i'm reading away about karl marx, thinking shit, i'm kind of marxist! and i follow the wikipedia link about 'marxist feminism' because that sounds interesting. And here i read that marxist feminism is the theory that: the root of the oppression of women is capitalism, as it deprives women of property, economic equality and independence, and breeds unhealthy relationships between men and women. In this capitalist society, the family structure (i.e. marriage) serves to subordinate women, putting them at the service of men.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bells go off in my head.
(This is why you should stay at school and learn, kids, so you know when someone is oppressing you).
Bells went off, and the ringing that they made sounded distinctly like the words 'fuck me, it's true'.

Just the night before, i had been talking with one of my best friends who is newly married and about to have her first baby. We talk about this and that and of course we talk about men, my complete absence of, or whomever i currently squeezing if i am squeezing (which i am not!), and her husband. And I can tell she really needs a vent you know, she tells me how he drops the cleanly washed towels on his poisonously toxic shoes and leaves them there, how he can't see the butter on the bench or anything else that needs putting away after he's made a sandwich... and on it goes. It's not particularly inspid, just home truths... and at the end of it she huffs and says crossly:
"I just feel like i'm his slave".
And this is one of the relationships i consider in the 'good' category. Well suited people who are in love. CRIPES.

And it's not just this friend, it's all my married friends. All the women feel this way, not just like slaves, but trapped. Trapped is a word I hear these days. They are totally dependent on men for financial support and their identity is suffocated out of existence by the all encompassing role of mother, the overwhelm, the expectations, the isolation.
Like the guy at the end of the bar, marriage looks less attractive the closer you get, I am finding.

Now now, I hear what you are thinking, what about the men? Exactly, what about those poor bastards, as emeshed in this dysfunctional system, shackled to their jobs, bearing the sum and total responsibility of bread winning. How horrible for them too. And I don't have even the vaguest idea of what an alternative solution to pairing and reproducing might be. But I have to say marriage seems a fundamentally oppressive institution, in light of these points. But MAINLY oppressive to women.

And this is not all. I had another conversation, via email, within days of these conversations, with a friend of mine who has been married several years. This friend said to me how they had wanted to discuss a particular sensitive theme with their spouse and it had created a huge explosion, which supported their growing belief that marriage was not a relationship in which you could be completely honest, or completely yourself. They went on to add, that marriage is so loaded with unconscious projections and expectations and that people subconsciously think that by getting married they have the right to be outraged if their spouse does not comply with their unvoiced assumptions, and that only non-married couples still had, at least, a sense that they didn't actually possess the other person.

And I thought, you know, it's really true. I see it all the time. In relationships, we negotiate, compromise, barter, because we KNOW that person can leave us and is opting to stay, essentially. And then the knot gets tied and people starting treating their 'loved one' like property, like a pet they need to perform well so their lives can remain on course.

It reminded me of another friend of mine who's husband wants sex all the time, and she'd quite happily live without it. She gestured to her wedding and engagement rings with the thumb of the same hand and waving them at me says: but this says i have to do it. I was slightly shocked, but only slightly. Which is shocking.
Hmmm swapping sex for gold and security... doesn't it sound a bit like... slavery?

So here I am, reading for the first time about Marxist feminism, with these conversations rattling round in the recesses of my brain, coagulating and attempting to form cut and paste messages for me, and I think a funny thing: marriage, is not, really.... feminist.

I'm struck that that is funny, mainly because i've never thought of it that way before. How come, in a world that was broken in two by our feminist mothers, (MY feminist mother!) and patched back together with women in the work force, equal pay (ha HA!), women in the army etc. well HOW COME we are still reading 'princess gets married to prince and lives happily every after' to our daughters, and how come our grown up daugthers, aka me and my UNmarried friends, are even still considering marriage an option, much less treating it as a GREAT TRIUMPH?!?!?

Someone's put something in the koolaid, becuase if the world was ever truly burnished by feminisms branding, the scar it left has all but faded to white.
Ahhh, look what the women have done, a little foot stomping, isn't that cute! Now send out the magazines to show them what to buy, how to look and how to act so they can use up all that silly energy covetting prams and cooking lamb roasts.

Shudder.

Now, being the daughter of a feminist mother, with an entirely feminist family, and feminist type expectations of me like, be everything, succeed all the time, have it all, feel fabulous being stretched within an inch of your inner resources... I thought i had been doing a fairly adequate job of feigning feminism. But here's the thing. THere are two ways you make decisions that support feminist ideals. One, is because you ought to, kind of the way you ought to finish dinner because african children are starving; and the other way, is because you're outraged.

And all these conversations and events and unveilings have culminated in me a feeling of, yes, a little outrage! And this outrage, lead me to all in one moment realise that I don't have to, need to, and in fact I think I may not want to, get married.

Ta da! That's the end of the show folks. Final bow, curtains fall. I mean, i never thought of myself as a ring-chasing big fat gypsy wedding type anyway, especially compared to many of my peers. But in a way I held this loose etheral idea of me getting married, the way you see yourself sitting on a porch when you're old. It's just how it looks. I may have watched too many movies.

And I tell you something else, boy does that take the HEAT OFF!
I didn't think I was dating in order to get married (and I feel like i'm going to be sick a little just writing that out loud to you) but the idea that i will never get married, by choice, well that just feels like a big fat gust of wind just blew into my life, peeling the curtains apart and the view it reveals is across a wide sea of freedom and possibilities, as far as the eye can see.

I've also downloaded lectures from oxford university explaining capitalism... next thing you know i'll be up and quitting my oppressive office job....

Yeah so that's all I got and it aint really funny so look at this fucking hilarious cat gif.
Oh, i don't know how to put it in... i'll try something else.

Oh and yes. I will be seeing extraordinarily interesting artist man again. This time armed with some prior reading! There you go. Nice call back at the end there! you see what i did. :)