Time Capsule: November 4, 2006

Because I like structure, I’ve decided to keep to a more regular schedule with this blog. Wednesday is now officially Time Capsule Day–wherein I go back to one of my many old blogs and see what I was doing On This Day several years ago. Today’s entry comes from 2006 and features many things still evident in my writing today: quotes, brattiness and documented insecurity. Get nuts.

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artists and scientists – placebo – ugly alle

Current mood: madonna

overheard at art and science on friday:

“the short layers make your hair look longer.”
“that’s the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard–oh my god, you’re right!”

“so for halloween, i didn’t really have a costume. so i just wore this really cute black outfit with pinstripes, did my eyeliner all cool–it took me an hour, but i did it–and wore this great red lipstick. and then i was talking to (mutual ex-boyfriend) and i told him what i wore, and he’s all ”so you went as alle?” and…i guess i unintentionally dressed up as you.”
“you accidentally dressed up as me for halloween? and (ex) identified this?”
“yes.”
“i’ve never felt so flattered and creeped-out at the same time.”

“let’s change our myspace statuses to married to keep the weirdies away.”
“okay. we’ll protect each other.”
“okay. you’re my wife now.”
“okay. we’re wives.”
…
“you realise this is BY FAR the most functional relationship either one of us has ever been in?”
“sure is.”

christin does not just provide hilarious anecdotes to relate in blogs, she also does really good hair! so if anyone is reading this and realising they need their hairs cutted, i suggest looking up the art and science salon in lincoln park (halsted and armitage) and making an appointment with her. she is an excellent girl and an excellent stylist–you will love your hair afterwards, guaranteed.

placebo on friday night was EXCELLENT. i can’t tell you how long it’s been since i’ve enjoyed myself at a show that much. it was exactly what i needed; a night out with cool people and great music. she wants revenge was pretty underwhelming, but since i only have a passing interest in their music it was no big deal (loved the lights, though). but placebo–oh, brian molko, love of my life. they played lots of stuff from the new album, which is actually very good, but still–when they played “every me, every you” my inner fifteen-year-old lost her mind. if there had been an encore, i would have been happier because the set seemed way too short without it, but whatever. LOVE.

last night was sara’s apartment warming. there were so many people, i could hardly move. thank god for rob, who stood around with me, defused panic attacks and avoided conversation with “strangers.” (loves you, pope.) sadly, that wasn’t enough to save me from ending the night feeling totally awful about myself. no matter what men say about appreciating intelligence and non-skank-girls, as soon as an underfed whore with a fake tan sticks her chest out, it’s all over for the aforementioned girls (like me). i’ve never felt more unattractive in my life. maybe if i wore too tight cheaply made low-cut everything a la vapid tramp, rather than completely covering everything below the neck in clothes too big for me a la elderly muslim woman, i’d be more valued. whatever. at this point, i’m sick of being told how clever and above my peers i am. i just want to be told that i’m fucking pretty. okay? that’s really all i want right now. to feel like i’m beautiful just as i am.

yuck. insecurity leaves a bad taste in my mouth. i’ll be better tommorrow.

…

First, let’s talk about the quotes and the girl that they come from. I’ve written about Christin before but never by name; we became friends after a boy kind of screwed me over and picked up with her. The boy in question is referred to as “Mutual ex-boyfriend,” and the same dude that I randomly ran into in my neighbourhood recently. Oy. Awkward.

Christin was cutting my hair back in 2006 because I’d agreed to be her model for her big important hairshow. She really had her work cut out for her; my hair had recently gone from black to white to red to white to dark blonde, and was TOTALLY fried. I ended up with a really cute shorter cut, which bought me another month before I decided that my mop was beyond help and lopped it totally off. It occurs to me as I’m writing this that I’m in dire need of another haircut now, actually. Time to holla at mah girl!

Second, Placebo. The backstory on this was that my friend Natalie won tickets to see Placebo when we were about fourteen. She asked me to go with her but my Mum wouldn’t let me, citing the fact that I wasn’t mature enough to go to a concert unsupervised. Looking back she was totally right, but at the time? I was PISSED. So when my friend Beth scored Placebo tickets in 2006, inner-fourteen-year-old-Alle was PSYCHED. I actually called Mum to snottily let her know that I was going to see them and she couldn’t stop me; she was all “Um, you’re 22. Go for it.”

Third, the insecurity. This entry was written in the midst of my mid-life crisis. It was starting to dawn on me that I’d never, ever be the right size or shape to continue modelling, I felt like a failure all the time because of it and as a result I HATED my body. At the time of writing I weighed about 117 pounds, which is plenty thin for someone who is 5′10″, but I was about to make a last insane effort to shrink down to a size zero. The end result? 107 pounds, no boobs, hair loss, and an epic starvation-related tantrum in Spanish class. Anyway, the point is that I was feeling terrible about myself at the time of writing. At Sara’s party, as reported, there were plenty of girls with big fake boobs, turning the heads of every dude they met. Then there was me; emaciated and dressed like a homeless man, lurking in the corner and hating life. I really shouldn’t have ripped on the other girls for being underfed; I was barely eating at all back then & would have KILLED to be even underfed.

I mention that I wanted to be told that I was pretty. I did. The thing about modelling–I feel like this might turn into a post all of its own, but I think this point needs to be made here and now–is that people will make very personal comments about your appearance all the time. Too old, too fat, too short. Your hips are too big, your shoulders are uneven, I don’t like your jawline. Whatever. You’re not meant to let them get to you, but hey, you’re human and THEY DO. I was so tired of it & I just wanted to feel appreciated on a physical level. Although even if a boy DID try to physically appreciate me, my self-loathing was so intense that you could forget me getting naked, at all, for anyone, period. I felt like a gelatinous blob of pure fat; honesty now compels me to say that I looked more like a sack of antlers than anything else.

I eventually quit modelling and started eating again. My hair grew back and I got my period again for the first time in a couple of years. I got back into therapy for my life-long body image issues and I got over thinking that I was worthless if I couldn’t fit into a size double-zero. I still dress a little like an “elderly musilm woman” although I’m a lot more comfortable showing off my body now than I was back then. But I no longer care if boys validate me by talking to me at parties, and I realise that being smart is a whole lot more important than being pretty. That’s personal growth. That’s beautiful.

Loves you!