From the Perspective of a Beauty Head

"I really hope tonight's the night," she thought, as the nice Vietnamese women pushed back her cuticles. Dave and Jenna had dated all through college, were homecoming sweethearts, both presidents of their fraternities. "A perfect New England boy and a lovely California girl destined to be married from the beginning," Jenna decided.

"You should go with Crimson Red for your manicure," said the nail technician.

Jenna nodded slightly, her staple color was pink but perhaps she should mix it up a bit to show her sophisticated side. But did she really care? Jenna was too wrapped up in imagining how the perfect night would play out.

Dave picked her right on time as usual. She felt confident as she slid across smoothe leather of his car. Jenna turned to give Dave a "hello" kiss and she could sense something different about his demeanor. He was nervous, anxious perhaps, whatever it was, Jenna didn't like it. Butterflies arrived in her stomach, accompanied by deafening silence. 

Her nerves cooled as they approached the restaurant where they had their first date. Dave opened the door for her and right there in parking lot, he knelt down on one knee. They never made it into the restaurant. 

Body Video Poem

Words Used:

-simplicity and strength in an eloquent design

-they are alive constantly building and rebuilding themselves

-protective layer

-400 chances to make a baby

-develops into a mature egg

-gene pool

- biological inheritance

-coiled passage ways

-twenty-three chromosomes

-completely new human being

One night, one dance, one perfect dance.

Simplicity and strength in an eloquent design.

I never thought a small instance of pleasure

could turn into the development of

a mature egg. 400 chances to make a baby and that night was mine.

All of these new things I have to think about:

-23 chromosomes

-biological inheritance

-the egg being constantly alive and building itself

This is all more complex than I could ever imagine.

-coiled passage ways into the gene pool

I need to form a protective layer so I can support and nurture this completely new human being.

Hi, I am Catherine!

SIGHT

I see the heat rising off the asphalt on the tennis court. It rises in swirls up into the sky to join the sun that burns my skin.

TASTE

I taste like bitten fingernails. Chomp Chomp Chomp.

SMELL

I smell like an art classroom -- acrylic, guash, charcoal, and clay all mixed together.

TOUCH

I feel like the silky texture of a freshly printed newspaper when you rub your fingers on it and your hand gets covered in ink.

SOUND

I sound like children laughing -- giggles, chuckles, screeches, snorts. 

Response to 11/07/7 Reading

Ideas for literary activism often come to my head, but dancing never crossed my mind. I suppose thats because I usually associate dancing with something inside a snow globe and for yours and others enjoyment. It seems dancing can be associated with so many different things and there are so many different kinds. I guess I never really thought that dancers were sending a message even without talking. A ballerina auditioning for Julliard shows that he or she is dedicated to studying and performing the beauty of dance. A ballerina at the ballet plays the story of the ballet, they display emotions with just the movement of their body. Teenagers at school dances represent them becoming their own person with their own moves and grooves. Words are the dance of someone's tongue. Think of rolling your tongue to make that rolling r's sound. 

I am what I am

I am what I am, and I do what I want. I am a free spirit that you see dancing through a parking lot. I am the zinging feeling you get after a hot shower. I am the pleasing yet undiscovered taste you receive after eating an odd concoction of food. I am the perfect sense you make when you feel like you aren't making any. I am the broken string in your guitar. I am the speck of white in your perfectly painted rainbow. I am the rock, when you are the water. I am the deep resonance in your laugh. I am the first rose bud after a long, cold winter. I am the shatter that breaks the window. I am the eyes in the back of your head. I am the fly on the wall. I am what I am, and I do what I want. 

Body Map of My Life

One

• Location: Thirty degree angle from the center of my face, nestled in my hairline.
  
• Cause: Spending the summer before my sophomore year in high school sitting by my pool.
  
• Diagnosis: Sun Spot
  
• Treatment: "Catherine, wear more sunscreen and don't sit out in the sun or else you'll get wrinkles!" - My Mother
  
• Follow-up: Hairdressers always comment on my beauty mark and its odd placement. If a boy plays with my hair, they stop to take a look at it, usually an awkward conversation.  

Two

• Location: Right forearm, cannot confirm actual location because as I get older it tends to migrate.
  
• Cause: The phenomena of how one gets a birthmark.
  
• Diagnosis: "You probably pooped on your arm when you were in Mom's stomach and it stained." - My Sister
  
• Treatment: Tanning, because the darker my skin is the less noticeable it is.
  
• Follow up: My dad used to own a restaurant on Cherry and Speedway. On Friday nights Astronomers from the U of A came and drank beer. One night when I was seven, a drunk astronomer told me that my birthmark was a "constellation of freckles." 
  

Three 

• Location: Above the knuckle of my left ring finger.
  
• Cause: My father was trying to teach me how to ride a bike in elementary school. I told him to not let go of me while I was riding. When he did so, without telling me, I proceeded to run into a mailbox, cut my finger, and fall into the street. After that I stopped trying to learn how to ride a bike, and I still don't know how.
  
• Diagnosis: Minor cut on my finger.
  
• Treatment: Sesame Street band aids and Neosporin.  
  
• Follow up: A couple years later I got a freckle right across from it on the same finger. The scar now has a friend.
  

Four

• Location: Belly Button.
  
• Cause: Very nice Halo employee, Brian, plunged a long curved needle through my belly button. 
  
• Diagnosis: Belly Button Piercing
  
• Treatment: Use H2Ocean three to six times a day, stay away from beds with animal hair, do not touch it with dirty hands, don't sleep on your stomach, no swimming or hot-tubbing...
  
• Follow up: The next day I was sitting in my therapist's office and she looked at my stomach and made a strange face. I looked down and blood was emerging through my shirt. I proceeded to pull my shirt up and there was a large pool of blood just hanging out in my belly button. After my appointment, my sister took me back to Halo, where they told me that I was probably anemic and should take vitamins. One month later I had a bleeding pustule on the inside of my belly button. My mom took me back to Halo, and they told me that I was probably anemic and that it was scar tissue. Two weeks ago the same sort of pustule appeared on the top part of the piercing, I went back to Halo, and they told me the same thing. I have an appointment to test if I am anemic on Wednesday. 
  

Five

• Location: Right Foot.
  
• Cause: I was making quesdillas and put too much oil in the pan. When I plopped the quesdilla in the pan, oil jumped out of the pan and onto my foot. I could hear the oil sizzle on my skin.
  
• Diagnosis: Second degree burn.
  
• Treatment: Running frantically around the kitchen trying to find Vanilla Extract (if put on soon enough, the vanilla will stop blistering). Then icing my foot, putting Aloe Vera on the burns, and a series of bandages.
  
• Follow up: "Why didn't you wear shoes while you were cooking?" - My Father. Does everyone where shoes when they cook? As well as numerous comments from strangers asking why I turned my foot into a pinata (there was quite a lot of bandages). I also had an excuse to wear flip flops to work.