Hot People Don't Shimmer (At Least...Not Like This)

The daytime high today in my little northern town was 31C and it's still something like 29C.

One wouldn't think that I'd be one to complain. You know, given the fact that this whole blog is about WANTING to be hot (get it? hot. har-de-har!). But it's not just that. Don't get me wrong. I like summer. Summer means that I can swim and eat vegetables that might have had less travel time than I've had in my life and that the days last longer so I'm not suffering from totally unexplainable depression in the middle of February...AND no raised eyebrows at cracking a cooler in the middle of the day BECAUSE IT'S EFFING HOT OUT AND I NEED TO COOL DOWN, DAMMIT. And, given the fact that northern winters boast a chill that literally has it out for you...like seriously, the weather is TRYING to kill you...it's very difficult not to appreciate a little excessive sizzle in your life.

But there's one thing about hot weather that really bothers me, and that is the fact that no matter how hard I try, I ALWAYS look like I'm suffering from debilitating, corpulence-induced meat sweats. Once upon a time, I thought it was because I was fat, but even during my leaner summers I still look like I've been generously greased with a pastry brush. I don't understand how other girls can go through summer looking like beach goddesses with their tans and their sun-bleached hair and their short shorts without the chafing...the awful, awful chafing.

And let's just be clear here, I don't want to spend hours in a tanning bed or bazillions of dollars on just the right amount of bleach (though I could do without the chafing). I'm ok with being pasty and mouse-brown. I'm not ok with looking like a pit-stained fishwife.

Surely there are products and tricks that can help me in this regard. Some kind of grease-removing face wipe? Some kind of maxi-pad for my armpits? Has anyone invented these yet?

Also...my hair has grown out since that picture was taken. What do I do with that? Theoretically, it should just sweep back and tendrils of my naturally curly hair should fall out in just the right places to make me look tousled but not messy, right? RIGHT? THEN WHY DOES IT ALWAYS LOOK MESSY AND GROSS AND PASTED TO THE BACK OF MY NECK ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS?

Dear Blogosphere. Please help. So I can think about what to barbecue.

Sincerely,

Miss T

Hot People Are Impervious to Diversions

Ok - Plan Ab-tastic is not going well so far.

The plan involves a two-pronged attack. The first prong is to be unapproachably attractive. I am not faring well on this score. Perhaps because I am less interested in boys of all shapes and sizes (I prefer now to focus only on boys of SOME shapes and sizes...), I find myself more attuned to the things that I do not enjoy about my physical appearance. I know I've complained about my complete and utter corpulence in the past, but the saga continues. I've also noticed that my face looks as though it belongs to the greasy boy from your grade 7 gym class...you know the one...he sort of lurked in the corner and ALWAYS dropped the basketball at crucial moments. It's kind of peeling AND acne-covered. SO fetch.

Also, there's my teeth, which I've noticed more and more of late. Let me tell you another hilarious story of my youth. Once upon a time, when I was seven, my family and I were driving home from the our friends' house in the early evening as the moon was rising. You know how the moon looks extra-huge as it's coming up? Well, we thought we wanted to make that magic last as long as possible. As such, my mother suggested we abstain from turning the lights on when we got home and instead go directly to the kitchen (which was on the moonward side of the house) to watch it continue rising.

Until I was in my early twenties, my Dad kept fish. For as long as I can remember, there has been some kind of fishtank in my house. For much of my young life, there was a gigantic fishtank in the front hall. As you may recall, fishtanks are made of glass, and are therefore more or less invisible in the dark. As you likely won't recall, the gigantic one in my house stood at about mouth height on a seven-year-old. And on that particular night, when all the lights were off, and I was (a little strangely) excited to see the moon rise from the back of our house, I ran directly into that fishtank, mouth-first. The direct result of this was that I broke my front tooth in half. And as if my front tooth had not suffered enough violence, it was broken again the following summer when my brother hit me in the mouth with a paddle. Because I was singing too much, or something.

As a result, one of my front teeth is made mainly out of amalgam. To my extreme dismay, almalgam stains easily and is impervious to the work of all whitening toothpastes, as well as the bleaching power of any white strip I've tried. In conclusion, it is at least two shades darker than the rest of my teeth. It makes me not want to smile, especially for photographs, and as the Little Orphan Annie taught me in that seminal musical starring Carol Burnett, you're never fully dressed without that. Lord knows, there have to be SOME photographs of me where I'm not in SOME state of semi-undress...so I'd like to fix my smile.

I feel as though ALL of my problems would be solved with the proactiv solution and Zoom whitening. Unfortunately, both of those things cost oodles of cash, and frankly, my Visa situation is more dire than the last time I mentioned it. Therefore, I will soon commence scouring the internet for home whitening and acne removal solutions. This will definitely not be a recipe for disaster.

Prong two of Plan Ab-tastic is to divert my attention away from boys. Because they ALWAYS make me sad. Always.

I've tried to do this by distracting myself with other things. One such potential distraction was also an on-the-fly attempt to inject some culture into my life; I got rush tickets to the Nutcracker ballet (could I just say, at this point, that $11 rush tickets are a perk of being a student that I will sorely miss once my current student card expires. SORELY). The Nutcracker is a holiday favourite, with music that is beautiful AND familiar, a story that is a timeless classic, and ballet, which is always fascinating to watch, especially when you're a person who can't actually touch your toes without bending your knees and grunting. Despite all of these things, I couldn't help but be distracted by the bulges in the male dancers' tights. Yeah...I spent most of the night staring at their junk. Or marveling at just how tight the tights were across their bums - seriously, I could differentiate between individual gluteal muscles.

So...after a week and a half, I am failing on all fronts. However, I just bought new pants, and they fit marvellously. This may be just the morale-boost I need to plough forward. We shall see.