Five Words from Orange

Orange gave me five words she associates with me. The deal is that I write about those five things and then if you want blog fodder yourself, leave a comment asking me to give you five subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your blog and elaborate on the subjects given.

1. Literature - Love it. Live for it. Shapes my whole life. I liked studying it so much as a young 'un that I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do than get paid to read and talk about it with a captive audience. I've been teaching for eighteen years in all, from junior high to college and back to high school, and I've never tired of talking about books and poems with kids of various ages. My students are sometimes surprised to learn that I reread a novel every time I teach it. I couldn't do otherwise - I'd feel like a fraud. But I never get sick of reading the books I love again and again. I find something new every time I read, and then invariably I learn something new from my students. My Old Man is a literature fanatic and an English teacher, and we talk about books constantly, and when we're not talking about books we talk about TV shows or movies like they're books. One of the things I love about my Old Man is that he reads incessantly, and makes reading a priority in his life, more so even than I do.

2. Teeth- Obviously, oral hygiene is very important to me. But in addition to my strictly hygienic interest in teeth, I do like them aesthetically. I appreciate a nice set of straight, white teeth, but I can also appreciate quirkier smiles. I have a weakness for the diastema, which is the space between the two front teeth. Think Lauren Hutton, Madonna, David Letterman before he got his fixed (the idiot), and of course, Chaucer's Wife of Bath. And while I do appreciate white teeth, I find it very unsettling when someone has teeth that are unnaturally white. In fact, I sort of hate teeth whitening in general because, in addition to the fact that it's one emblem of our vapid appearance-obsessed culture, it kind of ruins real white teeth. When I meet someone who has really nice white teeth, I find myself wondering if they're really white or just whitened. Sad.

3. Musicians - I like music. Musicians can be a bit of a pain in the ass. But then again, some of my best friends are musicians. I always feel weird when someone calls me a musician, because for me that word conjures up classically trained people who play more than one instrument and read music like breathing air. I just play guitar. And sing some.

4. Teaching- Well, I sort of got into that with #1. And then there's my why I love teaching post. Go read that. (Really. It's a pretty damn good post, if I do say so myself.)

5. Fashion (anti-patriarchy-wise) - The "anti-patriarchy-wise" is Orange's, but I think I would've had to go there in any case because how can you not if you're a feminist and someone asks you about fashion? I like to think of myself as rational when it comes to fashion. Which means I don't go in for the extreme stuff, femininity-wise, but I still live in my culture and am influenced by it in some ways. I think high heels are a mean trick played on women, but I can see their appeal. (Kind of like cigarettes - I'd never smoke in a million years, but I understand why it seems cool.) Myself, I try not to wear shoes I can't run in, if push comes to shove. And though I do have some two-inch chunky-heeled shoes I like and wear when I'm a bit dressed up, I really prefer shoes that I can walk a mile in comfortably (especially since I tend to walk a mile or more quite often in my walkable little college town). I don't judge my friends who like heels, but I do sort of enjoy hearing Twisty rant about why high heels are stupid and essentially a tool of the patriarchy. I also don't wear clothes that I find uncomfortable, but I will admit that my style of dress has changed with the times. Back in the 90s, I wore guy's jeans and big shirts. Over the past decade, my clothes have gotten less androgynous and more close-fitting. Part of this is because my life has shifted from that of scruffy grad student to high school teacher, but I know that part of it is because fashion has changed and I've been influenced by it. I try to resist fashion trends I find stupid, which isn't hard, but there are always some changes in fashion that catch my eye and end up influencing me, sometimes without me even realizing it. (For example, I've gone from finding flared pants silly and retro to having a pants wardrobe that's 90% flared. How did it happen? I'm not even quite sure...) It kind of goes without saying, but high fashion is silly and often blatantly misogynistic, and I find the cult of the fashion model one of the most disastrous facets of modern culture for the interests of girls and women.