A Palimpsest of Soul and Skin

This past weekend, one of my three younger sisters invited me to join her on a float in our city's Pride parade this weekend. It was, of course, fabulous to the extreme—especially since my sibling had recently won the title as the exquisite Mr. Gay Vancouver Island (in her drag king incarnation as Eddi Licious). She honoured me by asking me to participate with her. I've been a lover of Pride festivities for years. I've enjoyed them in Montréal and Toronto, and find the celebrations here in Victoria to be particularly charming for reasons that are hard to articulate. Maybe it's because the crowds are smaller; the participants, too, seem so legitimately joyful, and not at all jaded. So when I was invited to be on an actual float in a parade that would take me throughout the downtown core in full view of a large population, I decided to go for it, no holds barred. I have a not-so-latent drag queen living inside of me, as evidenced by my passion for all things sparkly and...

Lately I have taken more of an investigative interest in The Beauty Myth - both the book by Naomi Wolfe (which Warren purchased for me earlier this week - the darling!) as well as the idea itself. As shown in the Wiki entry (which, yeah, is always good for a drive-by), a portion from the Introduction: The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us...During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty...pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal... More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ...