Pretty girl

One of the biggest challenges for me sometimes is looking into a mirror. It sounds ridiculous but there are some points in a day where I feel so unattractive that I dont want to see myself. As I get older Ive realized that of course this is a natural thing and most people experience this to one degree or another. It doesnt make it easier but there is a comfort there. Obviously being gay, and even more so being gay in New York, doesnt help the way I feel and the pressure is always constant to look amazing. I'm not quite sure if I feel the way high school girls feel regarding personal beauty but I think I might. And when I feel this way, the next feeling I have is shame for feeling like a high school girl. What can you do?

When I was in junior high is when it all got bad. I had the Persian unibrow, the big nose, the glasses and braces, the whole shebang. At the time, because I was in the closet and thus not wanting or able to flirt with anyone, I mostly didnt care. I knew I had no style and looked a little gawky but I didnt care. It was when I left home and started getting compliments from men, I got a lot more confident and felt pretty for the first time. But the confidence was shaky. When I started going to clubs and bars, I would compare myself to the hot guys that were all around, especially ones who seemed to have it all together. There were definitely the "it" gay guys, or at least guys who thought they were, and even thought I could talk to anyone and was well liked, I felt the divide between us. At the time I didnt realize that my feeling inadequete physically was connected to my feeling inadequate in other parts of my life. No matter how many guys called me beautiful or cute or adorable, I couldnt quite believe it.

My teeth arent as straight anymore, I have body hair that I wish wasnt there and no cheek structure. Things that dont matter in the grand scheme. Things that the average person who looked at me wouldnt even notice. And yet I internally criticize myself every day. In the past year thought I started making myself get over it. What helped was the discovery of the cool qualities inside. Hey my hair may suck but at least I can do a pretty funny Madeline Kahn impression. So I may be hairy, but I have a bleeding heart and want the best for people. I have somewhat realized that those damn cliches regarding inner beauty may hold more truth to them than I would care to admit. Ive tried to accept what beauty I have and revel in the things that are unique about me, and to let the other stuff be because I cant do a thing about it. Obsessing about your looks gets old and people would rather not here about it.

This blog is called Legs LaRue for two reasons. One because I love alliterations and two because I love my legs. They are toned and most likely should have been on a woman, but they are shapely and I dig them. This whole post is one of my attempts at putting myself out there and showing vulnerability, and I'm not the most comfortable with it. But I think self perception and physical beauty are pretty core things to talk about. Everyone can relate. Im hoping to embrace more about myself, good and imperfect, and shrug all the other stuff away.

Where are you going, where have you been?

Hello, I've realized I'm a sucky blogger when it comes to consistency, there will be attempts at getting better:)I'm sitting on my unmade bed right now and we have no hot water or heat but thats alright. I think it's gunna force me to leave my neighborhood(it never happens) and go explore somewhere further downtown with my roomie.
So last weekend I took a trip back to the Midwest and visited St. Louis. It was just a weekend trip but I was really excited for it. I don't go back that often and for the past two years I have only gone back for weekend weddings. I have been in NYC for almost 7 years and its surprising to me how each time I travel to the Lou, my perceptions about this city and that city and my part in it change. Last weekend was the first time I went to STL with someone I'm seeing(he's great) and also the first time I stayed in a hotel there. It was kind of a  strange feeling but not such a bad thing either. I ended up staying in Clayton at a pretty swanky hotel(we had a discount) and attempted to show my man how great STL was. It didn't help that the weather was awful most of the trip but I gave it the old college try and we got to drive around quite a bit and see some of the things that make my birthplace pretty neat. Like the new Grove sign and the new Amtrak Station! Way to go STL!

I have conflicting emotions about St. Louis. In a lot of ways im uber defensive of it and am very nostalgic about it. It's a quirky Boston/Cleveland/New Orleans hybrid and I dig it. On the one hand I left it to distance myself from a lot of things that had happened during childhood and also dealing with coming out. At the time I left I didn't want to associate with the Midwest any longer and felt that I needed to be on a coast, that somehow I would tap into the energy there and it would make me a happier person. Last time I felt idealistic was before i moved to New York, because it wasnt exactly the salve I thought it would be. Good lesson to learn at a young age. Any one who knows me pretty well knows that I'm not close with my family but at the same time its not as traumatic as it sounds lol so that wasnt an issue. I'm a big proponnet of making your family from people who really invest in your life. I originally thought California was the place for me but ended up in NYC and thats a story I'll have to write about sometime.And NYC then became my home. And I dug my feet in the ground and even when I was hungry and broke I was stubborn and decided I had to make it work here, to prove something to the nonexistent people watching my life. It's funny how much an 18 year old really thinks the world revolve around them.

My life changed and shifted, there were rough times in which I was so depressed and other times when there were small triumphs that made me proud that I was doing it on my own. I made sure I came back to St.Louis at least once a year though. I think I needd to come back to gauge how well I was doing, to have some kinda comparison to measure my worth. And every time it would be hard to process the things that were felt during those trips. I would touch down at Lambert and I would be happy again and feel safe. I would be around friends and we would do dumb teenager things and drive around the Metro area and reminisce and blast music and go to the Central West End and Towergrove and it would be lovely. I think that the familiarity and the laid back attitude all around was appealing to a younger me who was going through hard times in the big tough Northeast and I would want to move back so badly. I can remember every time dreading getting back on the plane to come back to New York. The funny thing was, I could have stayed in STL. No one was forcing me to stay in NYC, I had nothing tying me down there. In some ways my life was transitory. And yet I stayed. And things got better, albeit slowly and not always in the ways that were hoped for. I really believe that my getting a great job and getting myself into a great school might not have happened had I stayed in the Midwest, at least in my case. I worked hard to make my life better, and in some ways it was more a credit to the city. It forces you to grow up, to deal with tough times, to fight a little harder and I think those are great things. I really came into my own in NYC and in some cases feel more like a New Yorker that a Midwesterner.

So while I was in STL this past weekend I mulled a lot of this stuff over. I thought of how far I had come in the past 7 years, the accomplishments and the dissapointments. As we drover through old decrepit parts of North City I thought about how much I missed certain people in STL and how I missed the charm of the city, the quirkiness of it's neighborhoods. I found myself wondering whether I could see myself back here, would I if given a chance. I liked how different my perspective on the city had changed. We drove through St. Louis Hills and I felt kinder and more sympathetic to it. Now that I had made my peace and my victories elsewhere, I didnt hold a grudge against it like I had previously, even if it was subconscious. Instead, I felt a comraderie with it in a way and was rooting for it to do better. Here I get a little flowery but bare with me. The city, kinda like myself, had been knocked around a bit, took a while to get it together, but was now on its way to, if not greatness, at least a better place in it life.

    

Muggy

Ok, so it's majorly late right now and if I was smart I would have been in bed about two hours ago because i know how pissed im going to be tomorrow morning when I can barely wake up, pick my clothes up off the floor and go to work. Yes, that's how I get ready for work because im classy like that. I shake off the dress shirt I have worn like 4 times and throw it on and usually pick the maroon tie that has been tied for like three months laying in my pile of clothes and call myself pretty and out the door I go. Well, im gunna be a pissed bitch tomorrow.

We are very much in the second half of the year and it's unreal to me. Like that thing older people say about the years going faster is really fucking true. I really started noticing it about three years ago. Each year is flying by faster and faster, and it stresses me out a little bit. It was ridiculously muggy out this evening and i made the mistake of wearing jeans thinking it was going to be easy breezy beautiful cover girl out. Instead it was warm sticky jeans clinging to my thighs out muggy. I went on a really long date that in theory went alright but I came up my steps in the building and I wanted to cry. I could ellaborate on why but honestly I just unloaded a bunch of it on two of my roomies, who are uber awesome and really wise so yay them because I love them. I'm just so exhausted by the amount of energy I have put into going on dates lately, putting myself out there and not feeling anything but beige. I feel like I have hit new levels of mediocrity and its extremely frustrating. I never want to be that writer of blogs who bitches about feelings and men all the time but Isuppose its necessary once in a while right? To keep it human. My roomates gave me very sound advice and I'm feeling a bit better now, less anxious and a little more centered.

Ohh NYC summer how much do you suck? Let me count the ways. I am very ready for fall, its one of the reasons I love living in New York and I really want to go to Central Park more in the next few months, something I rarely do. My roomate Dan made a really good point tonight which I will summarize.Basically, nothing good is ever going to happen if you keep doing the same things over and over that have never worked and expect them to eventually work. Soemtimes you totally need to switch it up, to change course and do something totally different, change your way of thinking(love you Mr. Dylan.) And I am really going to try that. Here is to Fall and better and different things coming my way.

Tilda, Queen of Scots

God I wish there was a Church of Tilda sometimes.....

Look at that pastey, ethereal lovely. Too much. Tilda Swinton has dabbled in a lot of different film genres and I've always been a little awed by her talent and just how other worldly and yet earthy she comes across. She isn't a Streep and I adore that about her. Although I am obsessed with Streep, there is something a little more subdued about TS that im drawn to. I love her. A lot. I have a thing for red haired women and throw in a dose of weird and talent and I'm on board totally.

All I want to do is traipse across foggy, rainy moors in the highlands with her and pick heather in the fields. Isn't that the Scottish national pastime?

America apparently runs on it.

Beginnings! Not really since i did enter two blog entries prior to this one about a year ago, one i think related to dieting and myself or something and I don't have a clue where they went. Well here I am again regardless, and upfront I am beyond dumb and also very behind on anything technological or media related. It's sad, and definitely not even a cutesy, endearing quality.

No worry though I have plenty of those in spades. Or something.

So I love the written word. Whether it's Vanity Fair articles on old Hollywood"(I really hate that phrase), or Gone With the Wind(my personal favorite), Joye Carol Oates, Fem Lit(get into it.), i crave reading, absorbing info, opening my mind to everything.

Writing and I have a different relationship. We tend to be like a close acquaintance you've known since childhood. There is a long connection and you have a good enough rapport but it's not really a uber-comfortable bond. Strained metaphors but what do you expect at this hour. Exactly.

So over the past few years the idea of actually writing  has been in my thoughts, increasing as other parts of my life fell into place such as job, school and blah. I think it's important for me to at least tap into the writing part and hopefully it enhances the bookworm side of me. I am really hesitant to put myself out there because in my mind my writing is sub-par and also I think im funny in life but that doesnt translate to funny on paper.

So here I am. The beginning of something amazing. Or the beginning of a 24 year old who's is writing a blog and maybe it will be great and maybe he will write 4 posts and forget about it for two years. The latter is definitely closer to home.

Dunkin' Donuts I pretty much live for. I had a blueberry iced coffee after a swim tonight. They had bright pink straws which made me really happy.

Also i think their slogan sucks.