Muchness and Light

And if love is real, maybe I'm just too bad to remember how good it feels. My heart is still.

One of the things I like about the Internal Family Systems model is that it doesn’t pathologize any of the subpersonalities. Even when their behaviors are seemingly destructive, their dysfunction serves a greater purpose, at least in their minds. Their actions and reactions serve to protect the Exiles, to prevent further harm from coming to the already damaged parts of the psyche.

When I am hurt or sad, and usually in response to infliction of hurt by someone else (and usually a romantic partner), one of my subpersonalities will fling terrible thoughts and words at me.

You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re gross. You’re stupid. You are unlovable, and no one loves you. You aren’t worthy of love and don’t deserve good things. You are a waste.

Now, logically, I understand those things may not be true. But why the hell would part of me continually tell other parts of me that I’m a waste of human flesh?

For a while, I wasn’t even sure who she was. I thought it might be Stephie, but she’s more likely to inflict her anger on others, not on me. And this one’s voice is no one else’s. It’s not my mother’s or my father’s. It doesn’t belong to any number of exes. It is a strangely-pitched, younger, strange version of my own voice. She knows how to inflect dripping sarcasm, spitting hatefully at me when I’m in the worst of the throes of pain. And just when I can’t take more, she hits with a final sucker punch, spinning me deep into tears and frustration.

She’s Harley.

Yes, it’s an easy moniker. And if she does her job well, she can get Quinn to act out, to seek out comfort in dark places.

And all of this to protect some Exile.

But what’s her purpose? I’m already hurting like hell; what good does it to do to inflict more, albeit different, pain?

Well, my first reaction to hurt and sadness is to close it down, to wall it off where it can’t reach me. Rango complained more than once that I would turn icy when hurt and angry. I can become very mechanical and refuse to feel emotion, let alone express it.

And that’s what she does: Harley forces me to feel something, anything that keeps me from returning to a dissociative state of numbness.

I spent the first ten years of my sons’ lives in that space. Struggling to find value both within myself and reflected from my husband, I shut down. My anxiety after giving birth to Max was so great that I started a low-dose SSR. It stopped the anxiety and kept me in the center, so I stayed on it until I couldn’t bear not feeling anymore. While the wild swings from joy to sorrow were abated, I generally felt nothing. When I got nothing in return, I became frustrated, and Quinn stepped in to give me some semblance of meaning again.

But because I am drawn to emotionally-unavailable men, Harley does what she can to keep me from becoming an avoidant myself. Given the last few years and recent relationship troubles, I get the appeal of shutting everyone and everything out. I get how it can seem beneficial to artificially limit what you’re willing to feel for another person, who well might break your heart. There is safety in walling yourself off from the Great Outdoors.

But I’m also a firm believer that love matters. It matters when we feel deep, caring emotion for another person, no matter the context. I don’t mean infatuation or attraction or simple affection. I mean the kind of love in which we are willing to sacrifice to help them reach their next goal. The kind of love that is so simple and pure that it expects to be cared for in return, simply because that is its nature.

It is unimaginable to me to walk away from that. It makes no sense to me that the people who’ve said they loved me could then walk away, could turn their backs on the thing they need most, which I just happen to be willing to give in droves. It’s nonsensical to have what you want most, what is good and healthy and true, right in front of you and to drop it carelessly on the ground on your way out the door.

So, the hurt for me comes from both the act of abandonment, whether physical or emotional, and the injustice of the leaving. And emotional abandonment is a very large part of the hurt for me. Hiding deep inside is a little girl who felt abandoned. Every time she felt it was safe to come out, trust someone enough to hold their outstretched hand and hope for love, she was let down again, over and over. She continually learned that she wasn’t worth loving, because people who love you stay and support you and care for you. They sacrifice for you, and no one sacrificed for her. She was, at times, a sacrificial lamb of sorts.

So, when the same wounds are reopened, Harley steps in to keep me from shutting down entirely. She steels me for an onslaught of disappointment and confusion. If I can already feel badly about myself, the abandonment makes sense. If they leave, it is because I am unlovable, so it shouldn’t be so hurtful or saddening. Even if what I feel is disgustful pain, that’s still better than feeling nothing at all.

While I know the things she says to me aren’t always true, there is, of course a nugget of truth to everything she says. I regained weight. I became complacent about my health. I can see myself aging both in photographs and in the mirror. I am emotionally difficult, hence my return to therapy. And even when those faults seem natural and overblown in my mind, there are long stretches of time in which I’m unable to find more good than bad, unable to value myself as more than my faults.

Pandy and I had a wonderful Saturday recently. I took her to see my beloved Afghan Whigs for the first time. Even though I’d just seen them in Atlanta a few weeks before, I traveled to Birmingham for what turned out to be the best Whigs show I’ve ever seen.

 

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A few days later, she messaged me and asked me to look at the photographs she had taken of me that night. She asked me to see what she sees, what she was trying to capture, “joy, or strength, or tenacity reflected in you.”

You are exquisitely beautiful. I know you seldom feel the woman I see, but that doesn’t mean you are any less the one I see. Sometimes friends see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Those are the times we need to redirect our focus, and look with kinder eyes; look at yourself for a moment as I do. See yourself in my photographs of you, and imagine what I was trying to capture. I see beauty. I see sass. I see strength. I see might. In short I see a very real version of Wonder Woman. She is a woman I love, admire, and appreciate. She is you.

I looked at her photographs. I can see what it is that she sees, why those moments capture those qualities of the woman in the photographs. What I don’t see, is myself. I don’t connect to those women in those pictures. I don’t feel attached to or protective of them. I don’t feel that their beauty and strength and sass is my own. Because if I feel those things about myself, it will open the door to hurt. It will allow for the possibility of disappointment.

But no matter what I do, no matter how far I get from my own center, Pandy is there. She is with me through thick and thin, through skinny and fat, through aging and heartache and wonder. I love her, and she loves me. I know this. I feel it every day, even if I don’t talk to her. Even when I’ve been at my worst, she stayed and supported me and loved me anyway, even if it meant telling me truths I didn’t want to hear.

Sometimes Harley argues with Pandy. Sometimes she rolls her eyes and just lets her talk. But every so often, she stays still and lets me feel the love that comes from this woman who has no desire to ever abandon me.

Somehow, that is progress.

 

 

Though you drown in good intentions, you will never quench the fire. You'll give in to your desire, when the stranger comes along.

Break-ups can be foundationally shattering. The end of a long-term relationship can be shocking to the core. There is the grief that comes from severing a deep, meaningful connection, of lamenting what has been lost, but there is also a sudden shift in daily routines that now feel hollow and future plans that will never come to fruition.

The day after Rango came to get his stuff from the house, I struggled just to maintain. I woke early, fed the cats, and cried for a while before falling back asleep. At noon, I realized I needed to get up and do my normal Sunday chores. The boys would be home from their dad’s that evening, and they would be expecting clean laundry and food for the week.

Walking through the grocery store, I felt raw. I felt like everyone who passed me in the aisles could see the sadness dripping from my every pore. I was certain that my hard-fought composure would come undone if anyone spoke kindly or smiled at me.

It’s not just that the sadness is a part of the grieving process. The sadness fulfills a purpose.

When I realized the futility of the relationship, I started looking for a new therapist. Therapy had been incredibly helpful through the demise of my marriage to DH. I was fortunate to have found an incredible therapeutic partner to help guide me through a couple of years of divorce and dating and loss. But my insecurities undoubtedly played a role in the tensions and break-up with Rango, and I knew I never want to feel those things again. I never again want to feel so easily broken by another person, especially when my head knows it shouldn’t be possible.

As I did some research online, I came across the Internal Family Systems therapeutic model developed by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s. It seemed to be especially effective in treating anxious attachers and rejection sensitivity. The idea is that we are each a Self, which is the true, whole, spiritual center of us. But we also have these discrete subpersonalities with their own intentions and needs and quirks and purpose. Each part has a specific viewpoint, developed from its interpretations of life experiences. Each has its own memories and interprets them according to its unique perspective:

• Managers handle the way we interact with the external world. They try to protect us from hurt, whether from others or from our own memories.
• Exiles are the parts that feel the worst emotions—pain, hurt, shame, fear—usually resulting from childhood trauma. Managers and Firefighters try to exile these parts to prevent their emotions from coming to the surface.
• Firefighters show up when Exiles break free and demand attention. They try to distract us from the pain, often encouraging unhealthy behaviors as coping mechanisms.

The goal of IFS is to allow the Self to access and connect to each subpart, healing them one by one. Thus, the Self leads the other parts in harmony and health. We become a whole, heathy person, rather than an amalgam of these smaller bits that exhaust themselves fighting to maintain a losing battle.

I have long believed that we each are made up of various persona, and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone….

In an online interview reposted through the band’s Facebook page, Alex Wheeler said the title, Persona Non Grata, referred to all of the unacceptable and unwelcomed parts of everyone—the lurid, the shadowy, the hidden, the broken.

“Each of us has a persona, all the time,” he said. “I’m one persona with the band, someone a little different with my fans, someone else entirely with my wife and daughter. Sometimes that persona is ‘good’ and sometimes it’s ‘bad’. I spent a lot of time exploring the bad sides of normal, everyday people, you know? Not serial killers or rapists or anything. I wanted to look at the things regular people like to hide from the people they know and, most especially, from themselves.”

                                                                                                                                Persona Non Grata (2012)

I have, at times, named some of my subpersonalities, though I wasn’t thinking of them within the context of IFS.

• Cissie is the sweet, blond girl who never seemed to be pleasing to her parents, no matter how hard she tried. She never felt like she was enough. She was also molested for years, and she spent a lot of her time agitated and afraid. She is an Exile.
• Quinn is the rebellious teen who learned to trade sex and secrets for affection, often in an attempt to protect Cissie. She has her own anger and hurt, but she will bear it all to protect that little girl. She is a Firefighter.
• Stephie is a loud ball of angry. She will erupt and tantrum and demand her way when she feels she is being ignored. She is potentially a special subpersonality called a Tormentor. (She secretly wears that like a badge of honor.)
• Sassafras Bombalurina O’Malley is the one who reminds me to be shiny and sparkly and to tell the world to go fuck itself if it doesn’t like it. She is an eccentric, outrageous Manager who knows how to call on the Firefighters to back her up.
• Wonder Woman is the Amazonian princess who does it all, because she has to. She handles the day-to-day business of life, and she is remarkable. She is strong and capable, smart and intuitive, and she can predict everyone else’s needs and desires before they can. She is a Manager.
• Stephanie Quinn Jackson is the writer who sees it all, who arranges it and espouses the shared perspective of the others, who bears witness to it all and gives them a voice when it seems that no one else will listen. She is a Manager.

There are others, nameless but all with some variation of my face. Each has its own role and purpose in getting Stephanie through her life. Not to be confused with Dissociative Identity Disorder, I am not claiming to have multiple, distinct personalities. These are simply facets of my personality, and each strives in its own way to help me be secure and healthy and safe—even when its influence result in dysfunction.

The sadness is tied up with the hurt, and it’s not just from this break-up. This is hurt that hasn’t healed in 40 years. This is sadness that helps me to keep others at bay, or to curl up in bed and sleep when I should be doing productive things, so that I don’t have to feel the hurt. So I don’t have to delve back into every haunting memory and question again why I was both too little and too much. Why I wasn’t worth careful, healthy love.

None of these parts can or should ever be exorcised. Each is valuable and necessary, both as its own part and as a part of the larger whole. But the hurt can be healed enough so that it doesn’t make more hurt, create more sadness, because somewhere in there is joy and beauty. Somewhere in there is a sad and lost little girl who desperately wants to be loved.

I have to find her and help her.

We have to find her together.

 

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Muchness and Light - But if you'd known how that would sound to me, you would've taken it back and boxed it up and buried it in the ground.

Ain't these tears in my eyes telling you.

Let's have a disco ball, and let's be happy.

Save

So tuck your hair behind your ears, your tears and your silly fears.

I am tired.

There's so much on me right now.  The end of the school year for the boys, with its neverending stream of class activities and banquets and parties, means summer is encroaching.  In previous years, we were able to relax and have some fun, but that will be hard to manage this year.  Today was first day of summer classes for me—a full 15-hour class load that would normally take 15 weeks but is truncated to 10.  Somewhere in there I still have to work part-time, do my homework, care for the boys, clean the house, cut the grass, do the laundry, cook the meals, and try to breathe. 

I have a little help lined up but not much.  The decision to stay in Atlanta after the divorce, as opposed to moving back to Birmingham, meant I have no family backup within almost 200 miles.  I have friends close by, certainly, but almost none are in a position to be able to help.  DH is now living out of state.

It's all on me.

Every detail, every move the boys and I make, is considered and planned and stored in my head.  Days like today start in the middle of the night, when I wake for whatever reason and start to run through the lists of what needs to happen today, this week, in the next month, over the next few, and so on.  I am working on a two-year plan right now, and there is no room for error.  Time and financial constraints make this the only plausible course of action; I have no choice but to continue to move forward.

I look around the house and see all the little shit that needs to be done—the cluttery stacks of school papers and junk mail that are building up like landmarks, the leaking shower pipe that has forced us into sharing my small bathroom, the small hole in the roof, and the shredded, fading wallpaper that still hasn't been stripped after two years—and I just can't get to it all.  These days it feels like I have my fingers shoved in eight or nine leaking holes with no room to stretch even my Amazonian hands toward another emergency if it comes up. 

Money and time are tight.  Manageable but with little room for error.  There's not a lot of time for me to stop being Mom or Ms. Jackson; Stephanie barely seems to exist right now, let alone poor Sassafras, who convinces me to wear something pretty and shiny every couple of days just so I don't forget that she exists, even though somedays my greatest splurge is a trip to Target ten miles away. 

But when it gets hard, when I start to cry because I feel overwhelmed by all of it, I remind myself that I am an Amazonian princess who can save the world, and herself, with love. 

You got that tattoo for a reason.

I can do this.  I have to do this.  I am doing this.  I'm not pulling the freshly-laundered sheets over my head and ignoring the world.  (Believe me, I've tried.  I just lay there recounting my to-do list until I get up and do the dishes.  Again.)  I am busting my ass every single day to bring myself and my sons closer to a self-sufficient life, to a time when we are not dependent on anyone else's time or money or support.  I am teaching them and myself that there are strong, dogged, determined women who will work their asses off to make a change, even if it is only in their own world.

And things go wrong all the time.  I find myself missing a school event for Tricky because I'm working, kissing his teary face at the bus stop because he's frustrated I'm not there like he wants me to be.  Or I'm in the front yard, fending off a barrage of Fuck-yous from a pajama-clad Max, who at 13 doesn't understand why his father hasn't reached out to him in well over a month. 

I do my best to hold it together, to keep the shaking and the tears at bay until they're gone for the day or safely in their beds at night, but I screw up.  I yell about the cat boxes and the dirty laundry they won't pick up off their bedroom floors, about telling them again to unload the dishwasher.  And I don't sleep, worried like hell about how I'm ever going to manage this on my own.  And at night, I stare at the lonely dark until my brain tells my body to shut down, even though it is itself constantly churning and planning and worrying.

You got that tattoo for a reason.

Every day, I get up and try again.  Sassafras helps me pin my hair up in my crown and throws on some sparkly bangles.  I fuel up the invisible jet, and I cruise from errand to job to another errand, hoping like hell that I have a handle on it all.  Praying every single minute that I'm not losing track of my babies, because there is no one else around to keep them on track. 

But I know that everything that came before, all of the lessons I have worked so hard to learn, are playing out now, in real time.  There is no more practice, no more play-acting until I'm ready for the real thing. 

This is my life, and I got that tattoo for a reason.

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I had on my headphones along with those eyes that you get when your circumstance is movie size.

People come into our lives for all kinds of reasons.  Sometimes they're just passers-by, on their way from one point to another, whose path just happens to cross with ours.  Other times, they're milestones and markers on our journey from Point A to Point Me, an interesting landmark that catches our attention and makes us pause for a moment to examine our surroundings a little closer.  And other times, well, there's a purpose to their entrance into our lives; we are supposed to stumble upon each other and learn some lesson, to find some new meaning in ourselves because of something one of us has to teach the other. 

These aren't necessarily the people who will surround us for the rest of our lives.  That's a very lofty ideal, to find our souls' mates and have them with us ad infinitum.  So often, though, that becomes ad nauseum, and the time comes when the separation has to be made, when those people have to be culled from our lives.  That can be a painful process for one or both sides, but it is sometimes unavoidable if we are to move healthily forward along our path. 

I strive to find the purpose in virtually everything I do.  Experience is often mundane, and there's little hidden purpose in the activities that often fill our days.  Breakfast and transportation and sleeping all serve a very defined and insignificant-though-necessary intent.  It's when people cross my path that I am most intrigued, my overdeveloped curiosity piqued. 

I got home about a week ago from Glittery Girl Week.  This was my first stretch of alone time since the divorce began.  I flew to Chicago to see Tiff for a couple of days, then on to Birmingham to hang with Hot Pocket (née Mandypants) and Growler, plus a few other glittering beauties and glamazons-in-training.  Planes, trains, and automobiles—plus buses and a lot of cathartic walking—took me to new restaurants and bars and clubs and shows.  I took Tierney on a tour of Chicago, where so much of her action begins.  I got my first tattoo.  I watched Persona Non Grata sell at Quimby's in Wicker Park, where so much of Tierney's action begins.  Where so much of my own life began in 2010.

 

"Junkture is what you do. Wonder Woman is who you are." - Tiff

 

It was, perhaps, the craziest five days of my life.  (If you know me, or if you've read Persona Non Grata, you will understand why that's such a huge declaration.)  And I loved every second of it.

Sitting on Tiff's sofa on Friday afternoon, she looked at me and said, "I've never seen you so confident in your life, Steph.  Really.  Ever."

She's right.  I am.  That's why I didn't shy away from the 70-year-old woman in a full-length mink coat who told me my purple-on-blond was beautiful.  I graciously thanked every man who stopped me to tell me how beautiful I was—really feeling the sentiment for maybe the first time in my life.  And when Paul, the 40-something guy I met outside my hotel in Wrigleyville held me up for ten minutes to tell me how and why I was special and beautiful to him, a total stranger, I was happy to give him the coat-open, full-frontal hug that he requested upon the parting of our ways. 

With all of these new people skittering about me, I am watchful for the ones who may mean something.  There was Fragile, a beautiful, young poet from Denver whom I met while boarding my flight from Chicago-Midway to Birmingham.  Her life was so different than mine, but there was an immediate connection and reflection of so many of my own hard-fought lessons in this amazing young woman.  When I gave her a Junkture guitar pick from my purse, she smiled and said, "I've started to affirm the things I'm going to do, not the things I want to do.  I just affirmed that I am going to learn to play the guitar.  This is my first guitar pick ever, and I'm going to use it to learn to play."

I gave her the copy of Persona Non Grata that had traveled with me through Chicago. 

Tierney headed out for Glittery Girl Week.

Tierney going through security at Hartsfield.

Tierney with the Blues Brothers at Midway.

Tierney and Tessa having breakfast at Whole Foods.

Tierney dancing with Mr. Stolichnaya.

Tierney at the Double Door.

Tierney looking for Liz Phair at Reckless Records.

Maybe I am meant to come into someone else's life to teach them something as well. 

There are others who've crossed my path recently, and I'm delighted to realize this stage in my life is about practicing the skills I've learned over the last two years, of bringing those lessons to fruition and proving to no one but myself that the metamorphosis really was what was supposed to happen, that there was a reason I breathed life back into Stephanie, that I met (and left) Absolem, and that my marriage came to its unavoidable and sad end.  While I still have things to learn, I can sense with some of these new acquaintances what those things are—in one specific instance, it is trust in another person in the most intimate of ways— and I am realizing with each encounter that I have something to offer them.

Maybe it's a different kind of trust.  Maybe it's learning how to allay their own fears in the face of certain criticism and lurid judgment.  Maybe it's how to open their mouths and say what they want from me or someone else or their lives.  Maybe it's even how to embrace the truth of their selves and to integrate those truths fully into their daily toil.  And maybe it's something I will never know. 

As I was circled by crows this morning—an omen of being mindfully true to yourself and your opinions, of walking your own talk—I realized that it's safe for me to impactful on someone else, that I can do it in ways that are healthy both to me and to them, without having to resort to the shame of keeping or being a secret.  It is refreshing. 

And I'm sure the learning will be reciprocal.  I can hardly wait to discover what new thing is waiting for me. 

I feel forever new.

It's been almost three weeks since my surgery—the first of my plastics procedures to remove the excess skin and fat since abandoning the 110 pounds.  The surgery took seven hours, which is the longest I've ever been under anesthesia.  The surgeon performed an extended abdominoplasty, a tummy tuck combined with a bit of a lower body lift.  She also did some lipo on my chin and my thighs, prepping for a medial thigh lift that will come in a few months.  She said there really wasn't much fat to suck out of my thighs, attributing it to all the hard work I'd done over the previous fifteen months.  In total, she took five pounds and fourteen inches of skin, leaving me with an incision that's three inches shy of running completely around my body.

The weirdest part was that I got a new belly button.  It was strange to see it, raw and inflamed, after a week of recovery.  (I was bound in compression garments and bandages, unable to see anything or even shower for the first week afterward.)  It's the same original hole, I guess, with new skin stretched across and through it.  It's a lovely belly button, but it's not mine.

 And I really liked my old one.  It was ridiculously deep—I'd often put a marble in it just for decoration—and quite lovely.  This one will be beautiful once it full heals, but it's strange and foreign to me.  I mean, your belly button is one of the first body parts you make.  Any parent knows it's a big deal when their baby finds their belly button.  It's a sweet, intimate part of a child.  My mom was a little surprised to learn the one she'd given me was gone. 

It's also been strange to be out of the gym for the past three weeks.  I haven't not worked out for so long in months, and I feel the pull to be back.  I'm ready to be moving again.  Hopefully, I'll be released for the treadmill this week, though I know it's another three weeks until I can work with my trainer again.  He expects it to take four-to-six weeks to get back to where I was before the procedure.

There's still a little swelling in my abdomen, and my thighs are still a bit sore from the lipo.  But the swelling gets better every day.  I'll be in these damn compression garments for another three weeks, to help the skin retract and to support the underlying muscles as they heal.  I have a very defined waist now, and my belly is flat.  I don't remember it ever having been so flat in my entire life. 

Yes, the pain during recovery was severe.  I was on heavy narcotics every four hours for days after, and they took their own toll on my system.  Neither of my births was C-sections, so I can't be sure how similar the discomfort was.  I can say that I felt like I'd been in a horrible car wreck, stiff and sore for several days.  Coughing was sheer agony, and I tried to contain it until my pain medication had time to kick in.  I really questioned a couple of days after if I'd done the right thing, if I'd maimed myself horribly.  Two weeks later, seeing the first real results of the surgery, I knew I'd absolutely made the right choice for me. 

Even with the layers of extra garments, my old jeans are a little big in the butt.  I can't buy new ones until I'm fully healed.  Yesterday, I tried on a little blue dress I hadn't worn in a while.  The last time I wore it, I needed a Spanx to help corral Medusa.  Now, it's a bit baggy where the beast used to be. 

About nine years ago, I found grown-up Wonder Woman underoos: a red, tight t-shirt and blue-starred panties.  They were a juniors XL, and there was no hope in Hell of fitting my ass into them.  I loved them, though, and I held onto them, waiting for the day they would fit like I wanted. 

Last night, I pulled them out of my drawer, just to see.  It was good.  I was joyously dancing in front of the bathroom mirror, admiring the expertise of my amazing plastic surgeon.  She told me in recovery that I'd be thrilled with the results, and she was totally right. 

When I was so sick from the medication, I questioned whether or not I was still willing to go on and have the other work done in a few months.  A week later, the answer is a resounding YES!  It's not a perfect body, by any means, but it's starting to look like I think it should, how I picture it when I think of myself. 

I didn't do this for anyone but me, and I'm glad I did.  DH certainly will benefit in his own way from my new body, and he's especially excited about the Wonder Woman panties.  Mostly he's thrilled to see the beginnings of my new self-confidence.  I'm excited, too, knowing one more piece of my puzzle has dropped into place. 

 

Of all people, you know who I am… who the world needs me to be. I’m Wonder Woman.

I was talking to my mom yesterday about some stuff that's been going on.

"I will survive this," I said, "and I will thrive."

"Yep, because you're Wonder Woman."

"The problem is that I forgot I'm Wonder Woman.  For a very long time."

"Yep."

Physically, yes, I'm an Amazon.  It's never been more obvious than it is now, after abandoning all of this weight.  I'm strong and smart and resourceful and resilient.

I also like boots and bracelets. 

When William Moulton Marston (a psychologist who was instrumental in the development of the polygraph machine) created Wonder Woman in 1941, he intended to create a new comic book hero who forged victory through love, rather than fisticuffs. 

Marston's wife Elizabeth said, "Fine, but make her a woman."

Based on findings during his years of psychological research, Marston believed women to be more honest and reliable than men, as well being able to work more efficiently.  While Wonder Woman is iconically feminist, some have suggested that Marston's model of ideal femininity—a 6-foot-tall beauty with the ability to lasso men into obedience—is actually the representation of his belief that women weren't really equal to men: they were better.

"Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world," Marston said.

Interestingly, Wonder Woman was modeled after two women—Marston's unconventional, liberated wife, Elizabeth, and Olive Byrne, the Marstons' live-in polyamorous partner.

I'm a tad shorter than Wonder Woman, a little weaker, totally not brunette.  I do not look good in spandex—though honestly, who the hell does?!?  I wasn't formed from clay and blessed by a goddess (at least not that I know of, though I am pretty damn lucky, in general).  I can't fly, and I'm neither especially fast nor freakishly strong.  I wouldn't know what do with a lasso, and I'd probably just lose the Crown of Antiope if anyone let me borrow it for the day.

Like Diana of Themyscira, I will continue to fight for what I believe to be right, no matter what.  There are those who will attest to my telepathic powers, and I'm pretty damn flexible.  I've been known to give up all my power for the sake of a man I loved.  And I will open the proverbial can of Diet Whoopass on anyone who threatens those I hold close to my heart. 

So thanks, Mom, for noticing what I've only recently remembered to notice in myself.  I would tell you to poke me if it slips my mind again, but I'd probably just try to kick you.  But I would have damn good hair while I did it.

Wonder Woman costume now slightly less awful | TV | Newswire | The A.V. Club

via www.avclub.com

I'm following up on this, because there was so much discussion about the original horrid Wonder Woman costume. She has red boots now (YAY!) but also less plastic-y pants. I'm digging this a little more, though I still question where Adrianme Palicki has any hope of outdoing Lynda Carter.

Wonder Woman First Look: Yay or Nay? - TVLine - TVLine

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via www.tvline.com

Okay, so the boots are undeniably the wrong color. I don't think she's wearing any more makeup than Lynda Carter ever did. And I don't really mind the pants, I guess.

She's too small. Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman, is an AMAZON PRINCESS. She's actually 5'11, which is two inches taller than Lynda Carter was for the 1970's television series. But Adrianna Paicki is obviously having to stick her boobs out to look big and powerful. Lynda Carter had no such issues.

And the comic book Wonder Woman ain't no small thing. She's a strong, muscular powerhouse from constantly kicking bad guy ass.

It's taken forever for this movie to come to fruition, so I guess I should be glad it's happening. If I had a daughter, I'd much rather she idolize this type of princess, rather than an insipid eyelash-batter.

If this turns out like the Bionic Woman, though, I will be very, very sad. And you wouldn't like me when I'm sad....

Now the world is ready for you, and the wonders you can do.

I'm kind of a geek girl, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  I'm not nearly so geeky as some, but I'm smart and I have a weird sense of humor.  I wore glasses for a long time, though now only when I'm on the computer.  (Thank you, LASIK!)  I was in the gifted program from the third grade, right through my four years at a small, all-gifted, freak show of a high school.  (I still dream about it sometimes.  I know of no other school that had an annual drag show every Christmas, the Ms. Poinsettia contest.)

One thing I never really got into was comics.  Maybe it's because neither of my parents really cared about them, so they never introduced them to me.  I can admire their artwork (when it's good) and storylines (when they're cohesive), but I'm just not that into them. 

But I love superheroes.  As a kid, I loved to watch Isis on both the television (The Secrets of Isis) and in my coveted View-Master reels.  I don't remember much about the specifics of the show, except that she was really pretty, had a great costume when she went from school teacher to ancient goddess, and there was a giant crow.  Sometimes Shazam showed up.  (I bought the entire series on DVD a couple of years ago and have yet to watch it.  I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend!)

 

For years I would ask people randomly if they remembered a show that used to air on WTBS, long before it was the national TBS channel, based out of Atlanta.  It was in black and white and featured a Japanese boy whose best friend (also a boy) could turn into a rocket.  He had parents who could also turn into rockets.  The human boy called the rocket people with a special whistle.  Sometimes Godzilla showed up.  Most people tried to tell me it was probably Ultraman.  One look at pictures told me that was wrong.  A couple of years ago, I Googled for it again.  Finally!  It was Space Giants, which was a terrible Japanese show that TBS used to fill its afternoon schedule.  I loved it, but even by 1970's rerun standards, it was lacking in production quality.

 

My very, very favorite, though, was Wonder Woman.  Oh, Diana Prince!  How I wanted to be her!  Any time anything went remotely wrong in my world--parents arguing, friends being mean to one another, cat scratching the carpet--I would run into the midst of the melee sing-screeching, "Wonder Woman!" while I spun around.

 

I spent the summer of 1978 trying to turn into Wonder Woman, but all I got was dizzy.

I didn't have a real Wonder Woman costume that I remember, but any vaguely superhero garb would do.  Pillowcase cape: check.  Old plastic Halloween mask: check.  Rubberbands intricately woven around my toes like gladiator sandals: check.

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Years later, while working on a totally unrelated geek project,   I learned there actually was some literary and mythological veracity to Wonder Woman.  Three of her greatest artifacts--her belt, her crown, and her bracelets--were based on actual Greek myths of the Amazons.  The girdle of Hippolyta, the crown of Antiope, and the bracers of Penthesilea were all items belonging to Amazon queens.  They were looted by men.  (Imagine that.)

The lasso of truth, though, and the invisible plane--those were all DC Comics.  And what woman wouldn't love to have a golden lasso she could catch a man with and make him tell the truth?  Or a really fast vehicle that let you be ultra stealthy while you traveled?  I know there are logistical issues with the plane, but it still kicks ass.

So I often ask people what their superhero power would be, if they could choose one.  After years of this, I often find the answers are incredibly telling about the person's psyche.  A former boss of mine wanted to be able to sneak around undetected to see what others were doing.  A woman I knew, who had two pre-teen daughters, wanted to be able to see through walls.  And yet another female co-worker, who was obsessed with physical looks of both herself and others, wanted to be able to take on the form of anyone around her, to suit her needs in the moment.

I recently asked a couple of people this question again.  Adam Taylor said his quick answer would be invisibility, but that he recognized he would likely get himself into trouble, a là the curious cat.  Then he said he would probably choose to be able to run really fast, defying gravity and friction, because he often dreams of doing just that, and he relishes the sensation. 

Interestingly, my mom said she has similar dreams, but for her it's more about the quick movement.  She would like to be able to blink and just be somewhere without having to actually take the time to travel.  There's no flying sensation that she's after.  She hates the wasted time of the journey and would rather be able to enjoy the destination a little longer. 

My elder son who adores going to the comic shop with his dad, and who loves all things superhero, says he would want to be able to absorb the powers of heroes around him.  He concedes that it would only be one at a time, or that would just make him too powerful and spoil all the fun.  He's a child with a highly-developed, black-and-white sense of social justice, who likes to examine everything in great detail.  DH/Dad is totally a morally-unambiguous DC kind of guy.  (The eldest golden apple doesn't fall far from the Magic Tree.)

Then there's me.  Would I like to be able to force people to tell the truth?  Nope.  How about fly, or walk through walls?  Uh-uh.  In mixed company, I will say that it's mind reading.  It gives you something of a psychic, know-things-before-others-do kind of advantage.  But there's also the double-edged sword of knowing what others really think of you.  And then there's the potential problem of not being able to turn it off when you wanted, which makes people crazy in Superhero Land.

But the real answer (sorry, Mom!) is that I would like to be able to give people orgasms on command.  Yep.  You read that right.  I came to this conclusion (no pun intended) around 1994, during a late-night, non-sober conversation with DH. 

I think about what this ability would do for world peace, on the largest scale and the smallest.  Would Tiananmen Square have gone differently if all of the repressed Chinese military had a unanimous, personal quickie?  Would the LA Riots have been avoided if we could've given those four cops just ten seconds of unexpected release?  Would that bitch at the grocery store just adjust the price of the mislabeled cookies if she had some sweetness of her own?

But what I really want to do with it involves the craziest, most heinous day of the year: Black Friday.  I want to go into malls across America on that hateful, fateful day, high noon in the food court, and make tens of thousands of people come at one time, if only to see the fountains of Diet Coke spewing forth from the lips of repressed capitalists, all at the same time.

That would be teaching the world to sing. 

I think fixing the world is kind of like rescuing your friend from the Borg.  You gotta think low and slow.  It won't be a grandiose fix to human nature, or some great moral lesson from without.  It's all about making the little things better, and there just ain't anything better than that.