fashion clothes

Hair, hair everywhere. What's a man to do?

For as long as there have been humans, there has been an abundance of hair. On heads, on chests, on arms and legs, and yes....down there.

I must include a disclaimer here so that I don't get a bunch of hate mail over this post, and/or totally gross out family members. If you don't want to read about sex, penises, balls, happy trails, vagazzling, tweezing, waxing, chafing or rubbing, stop reading now. I mean it. Like right now.

Last chance.

I'm not kidding. Go.

Okay, now that we're done with warnings and disclaimers, let's get on with the business of the day, manscaping.

This topic came to me as a request from a fan. Someone I have known, quite literally, forever. He's a dude that needs some questions answered. He knows that I can't refuse a challenge, so here we are.

Since at least 4000 BC, people have been removing hair from their bodies. Razors were invented sometime around 3000 BC. Prior to that hairs were plucked out using shells. (I'll just let you think about how awesome of a process that must have been for a moment.)

Facial hair is the hair most commonly and historically removed for men, leg and underarm hair for women, though some cultures have long dictated the removal of pubic hair for women. Oh, and just in case you are wondering, if you search bikini waxing on Wikipedia, there are pictures. I've linked it here for ease of use. You are welcome.

Though the removal of pubic hair is nothing new, the widespread societal expectation of female removal is something fairly recent, at least in this country. Sex and the City didn't just bring back day drinking, it urged women everywhere to get their tingly bits waxed.

And the world rejoiced.

It's a trend that hasn't seemed to let up, though every so often there are stories that pop up alleging that waxing is on the way out, that women are embracing their pubes again, that the moral center of the nation is encouraging growing it long and strong to rebel against the horrors of porn. And so on and so forth. Then vagazzling becomes a thing a few weeks later and we all realize we're still going to be shaving for a while.

So, women have been doing it a long time...what about the men? They've come over to the smooth side too.


I could get into a lengthy explanation about chest hair or leg hair or any other hair, but we all know that's not why you're here. You're here for the naughty bits. Unless you are a porn star, swimmer, model, elite cyclist or runner....you probably aren't shaving your entire body bald because you have to. You're shaving it either because you want to or because someone told you it looked good.

Little secret here. Ready? Most women I know actually like chest hair as long as it's not unwieldy and doesn't fan out too far or stick our of the top of your shirt. Feel free to trim it up, but don't shave it all off. (Also, feel free to discuss among friends, ask your significant other what they prefer, choose to ignore them if you like to be a bear, whatever....however you get your freak on, I'm good with it.) Whatever you do, leave a trace of the happy trail. Please.

Don't do this.

In researching this post, I've been fortunate to have many male friends willing to tell me their stories. Some go full 70's bush, refusing to shave anything below the neck. Some use clippers to tame their body hair, but refuse to shave with an actual razor. Some trim pubic hair only, leaving the chest hair alone. Some were even kind enough to tell me they shave the pubic hair on top but leave the ball hair alone. And then there were the bald boys who go for it all, clippers first, then razors.

Every guy does it a little differently, and they all have slightly different reasons.

Some started during puberty or very shortly thereafter. More than a few started in college. Some started at the request of a significant other. One guy I know started when he found his first gray pube. True damn story.

My only word of caution is this, ladies....if you have been married a long time and your husband has been hairy the whole time, then suddenly decides to shave his balls, worry. Middle aged men don't often just wake up one day and start doing this unless there's a reason, at least not from the stories people have told me.

What are the reasons for a guy to shave his junk? (for the love of all that is right and just in this world, if you are related to me and haven't left yet, go now)

1. Sex. Really, this is the main reason. Let's just be honest about that. I don't have a penis, but I can tell you that sensations are heightened in the nethers when hairless. I assume it would be the same for a dude.
2. Oral Sex. It's just better. And your partner is probably more willing to go there if things are tidy. No one likes getting hair in their teeth. Cough. Cough.
3. Illusions. There is a thing, referred to as the "optical inch", reasoning goes a bit like this: if the bush is trimmed back a little, the trunk seems longer and thicker. 
4. Cleanliness. Hair hangs on to sweat, and let's get one thing clear: balls sweat a lot. Sweat stinks. Less hair, less place for sweat to fester - less smell.
5. Looks. You know you've stood in front of a mirror and admired it. If you say you haven't, you're lying. If you are a guy and try to tell me you haven't at least attempted a helicopter, I'm never believing another word you say.
6. Because someone asked you to. Okay, so maybe this should be the main reason.
   
    

Courtesy of my good friend, also possible story contributor, The Musings of Munch, an earworm for you, sung to the tune of Miley Cyrus' Hoedown Throwdown. Wax it, shave it, epilate it.

Day 29 ~

I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger.

~ The Joker, The Dark Knight


Heath Ledger. The Joker. One of the best acting performances of our entire generation, the character that infiltrated his mind, the craziest bad guy we love to hate and hate to love.

He was that good. The world lost an amazing actor when he died.

The script for this movie was written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, based on the characters we have grown up with. Batman is one of the most mysterious, darkest heroes in the superhero universe, so logic dictates that his enemies must also be mysterious and dark.

This phrase is uttered very near the beginning of the film, during a bank robbery, as The Joker shoves a smoke bomb into the mouth of a bank employee.

The Joker is a twisted person, to say the least. His motivations are different than most villains. He doesn't just want money or power or influence or weapons. He wants chaos more than anything. He literally wants to watch the world burn just to see what people will do when faced with ethical dilemmas.

Why he is the way he is, we may never know. There are several different versions of his past, and in the film The Dark Knight, he spends quite a bit of time telling stories, always different, each one a little more crazy than the last.

On to the quote, one which seems appropriate for a man like him to say.

And, if I'm being completely honest, one that I tend to agree with.

Let me explain.

There is a run-of-the-mill quote very similar to this one, uttered in a million different incarnations, about how what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There's truth to that one, of course, assuming that what you deal with doesn't damage you too much. Living with PTSD now, though there are days I would say I am stronger, there are also days I would say that I am too damaged now.

I think we all learn and grow from our experiences necessarily, that we gain perspective and wisdom, that we mature and expand our view of the world. Or we should. Not everyone does. Some people take their experiences to be the only ones, their perspective to be the only one, and then spend the rest of their lives laboring under the delusion that the version of the world they see is the only one.

So, what doesn't kill you can make you stronger. It can also make you damaged. It can also make you bitter and deluded.

This quote isn't that one, of course. It is a mockery of that quote, twisted and mangled by the raving lunatic shoving a smoke bomb into an innocent man's mouth.

It's also true.

At least for me, it's true. I've been through a lot. There were times that life beat me down, kicked my ass, shoved me down further and left me to rot. It was that bad for a while. I've lost a lot. I've had to do things no one should ever have to do. I've been scared, I've been alone, I've been used.

I survived it all, somehow, probably just out of pure stubbornness.

Now that I'm here, hopefully past the worst of it, I'm this version of myself.

I'm stronger in ways, weaker in others. I'm smarter and wiser but far more skeptical and cynical than I ever was before. I'm more prone to show emotions at times, more likely to stuff them away at others. I'm more interesting for sure.

And I'm a hell of a lot stranger than I ever was.

I'm writing this while re-watching this week's episode of Sherlock, so I apologize in advance if it tempers my rage. It's hard to be angry when Benedict Cumberbatch is being all swoonworthy right in front of me.

I'll still try.


You guys....it's January, calm down
It's winter. In winter, it is cold. In winter, there are storms that bring snow with them. This is what happens. This year is particularly cold and snowy for parts of the country thanks to the wonder that is the polar vortex.

Still. It's January. It's winter. This happens every year, though perhaps not to this extreme.

I'm amused, to say the least, by the posts I'm seeing on Facebook. The parents pissed that school is canceled. The parents pissed that school isn't canceled. I'm amused because I don't work for a school district and don't have to put up with the emails and phone calls by all the pissed off parents.

Here's the thing.

The districts have to worry about safety first and foremost. They really aren't concerned with inconveniencing parents, honest. They have to worry about road conditions and whether the buses are equipped for winter driving. They have to worry about the kids who have to walk to school or to the bus stop. They have to especially worry about the kids that have to do those things but don't have coats or gloves. They have to worry about the required number of days in the school year. They have to worry about whether the school year will be extended into the summer, which would inevitably piss more people off.

This year, districts that never have to worry about any of this shit are having to worry about it.

Have we had snow days that were unnecessary? Of course. Have there been times that it should have been called and wasn't? Of course. There's no perfect way to interpret weather forecasts because of the simple fact that they aren't always accurate.

Give the districts a break. They are doing the best they can with the information they have.

The people who don't read, but comment on everything
This. So much this.

If you're going to take the time out of your day to ponder a response, type it out and wait for the shitpot to get stirred....for the love of all that is soft and fluffy in the world, read the goddamn article first.

This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves as a writer. I really and truly enjoy commentary and even criticism on what I write, but before you give me feedback that I will take to heart, you have to read what I actually wrote. You can't glance at a title or a picture or the comments being left by other people and know what I wrote. It doesn't work that way.

I deal in sarcasm here people.

Case in point, I wrote a piece for Lefty Pop about Justin Bieber yesterday. It wasn't even really about him so much as it was about the news networks running stories about him over actual news stories that are far more important. I had a picture of the Biebs in the story. Some people just saw that and jumped to conclusions. Head:Wall.

The people who believe whatever people tell them
This. So much this.

Maybe it's just been an off week for me, but I've seen a lot of people sharing fake news stories, sharing articles from satire sites as though they are real, sharing so-called facts that someone told them as though they are true at all.

Stop that.

Maybe I'm just the most skeptical person in the universe, but I fact check everything. I tend not to believe anything people tell me. I doubt most of what I read. I love Snopes. You should love Snopes too.

Chances are anymore that if something rubs you the wrong way, makes you overly happy, makes you overly pissed off...you should verify that information before you spread it all over the book of face. There's plenty of real stuff out there to outrage you, to make you happy, to disgust you...stop falling for the fake stuff.

The Gays Are Coming!!!!!
The weekly developments in the struggle for equal rights have taken some bizarre turns. Two weeks ago, a judge ruled that Oklahoma's ban on gay marriage violated the Constitution, so legislators there have taken the next logical step...they want to ban all marriage as a way to forbid gay marriage. If everyone can get married, then no one can.

I'm going to take my toys and go home, the 2014 elected grown-ass adult version.

On the Grammy's Sunday, during the performance of the song Same Love, 34 couples got married. 68 people who love each other pledged vows and exchanged rings in front of the world. It was beautiful. I was crying from here, feeling so many feelings at the same time, honored that I was able to see it.

Then the homophobes of the world had to chime in. I'm not including the screenshots of what they said for a reason. You can read them here if you want.

Congratulations to all the newlyweds.

“At some point in our lifetime, gay marriage won't be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black.” - George Clooney

Can't you just be Christian? Or quiet?
This story brought out my inner Luther. And reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend very familiar with this area of the country just last week, where she made many of the same observations.

There is a sixth grade teacher in a public school telling kids that the Bible is 100% truth, that evolution is impossible and that anyone who doesn't believe in God is "stupid". A Buddhist student in the class got fed up with this and told their parents. Parents went to the school district with complaints, where they were told by the Superintendent that "this is the Biblebelt", then given options.

The options?

Change to a school with "more Asians" or change their faith.

No, I'm not kidding.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family.

Day 28 ~

"Damaged people gravitate towards damaged people."

~ Norman Reedus

This series is almost over. I am so conflicted about it, for a few reasons. First of all, I love quotes. I love learning more about the people who say the words that become famous. I love interpreting things. It's what I do. Some of you out there reading have adored this series. We lost everyone else along the way though, and I can't honestly tell if it's just adjusting to Facebook's latest "improvement" that drops my reach, if most of my fans are turned off by this series, or if I'm just getting boring in my old age.

I can't tell.

Do you know who Norman Reedus is? He's best known for his role as Daryl, the guy that I want right next to me during the zombie apocalypse.

This guy.



Swoon. In real life, before he was the crossbow wielding badass, he was a model and artist. He has built Harleys and exhibited his art all over the world. I was trying to think of a way to wrap up this series that was interesting to me at least, and since he is very near the top of my list, I looked for quotes from him.

Then I found this and I decided that he should just move in with me.

Because this.

Damaged people gravitate towards damaged people.

Do they ever.

I have this theory. And forgive me in advance because this theory is totally going to make me sound like an asshole to anyone who doesn't understand where I am coming from...

It's this.

Perspective is everything, and the only way to really have it is to live through enough terrible life experiences. Get through on the other side, after you've survived and re-evaluated and reorganized and reassessed. Once you've seen what you are made of, what other people are made of, once you've been totally honest about your flaws and embraced them, then you can actually begin to understand what the point of all of this is.

Until then, you're just chugging along doing what you think you are supposed to, reaching for things you think you want, valuing what you think is important. Even if it's all bullshit.

Necessarily, to have all that vital life experience, you have to have been through a lot.

Those experiences don't just bring knowledge and wisdom, they bring baggage too.

I have a matched set.

With a steamer trunk.

Am I a damaged person? Some people would certainly think so. There are times that I wonder if I'm broken myself. Sometimes I am, if I am being completely honest.

The people who get me, the people who understand me the best, the people who I can tell things to, the people I can trust to be there for me without judging me or placating me or handing out irrelevant advice....they've been there too.

Does that mean we're all complete train wrecks?

Day 24~

“The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.” 

~ Friedrich Nietzsche


This.

Quotes like this one make me wish I had pursued philosophy more when I was in college. It's an issue necessarily complicated by the fact that I was far younger and naiver than I ever could have appreciated at the time. With age comes wisdom and perspective which makes you appreciate things like this a little bit more, I think, so maybe it wouldn't have been as magnificent as I imagine because I wouldn't have understood it all yet.

I digress.

Nietzsche was a German philosopher who questioned the validity of Christianity and mused about the foundations of morality. He was an existentialist who believed strongly in the affirmation of self. One of these days I am going to make good on my threat to build a time traveling machine and go buy some of these people a drink.

Anyhow, to the quote.

“The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.” 

I'm just going to go ahead and assume he meant to include "woman of knowledge" too. Wink, wink.

The older I get, the truer this quote is. First, the beginning of the quote. When I was young and naive, along with my patent inability to appreciate philosophy, I didn't understand the value of diversifying my relationships.

I know it now.

It's something that, much to the chagrin of a few, I try to live in this online persona I have constructed. My Facebook page, often the place of heated argument, is one where differing opinions are solicited and encouraged so long as everyone can remain respectful of one another. There are plenty of pages out there who enjoy their viewpoints and who choose to limit dissent. That is their choice. My choice is to be open and accepting of all viewpoints, to do my very best to be tolerant of them, and to allow others the same freedom.

I can't argue against censorship and then censor people. It's logically inconsistent.

And I am really part Vulcan. Truly.

We've had conversations on my page that have remained mostly civil about some of the most heated topics in our society, conversations that would have rapidly degraded on other pages I follow. I like to believe that the reason is, at least in part, because of how I run the page.

There is great harm in being surrounded only by people who agree with you. Your views will never be tested or questioned, which can lead you down very skewed paths of reasoning if it isn't ever held up to the fire.

Talk to people who disagree with you. Understand where they are coming from. Ask them questions. Learn. Open your mind. You won't be the only one who benefits.

As for the second half of the quote, I agree as well, though for a slightly different reason. As for the philosophical reason, hating your friends can come in handy when they are helping to lead you down that path of flawed reasoning I was just talking about.

People who we trust can hurt us, can encourage us to hurt ourselves, can encourage us to hurt others. Perhaps this is because they aren't really friends, perhaps this is because they have ulterior motives, perhaps this is because we don't understand the true nature of the relationship. Regardless, a bit of skepticism isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Plus, sometimes people you like are going to do really stupid things. It's okay to hate them for it.

Promise.

Day 23 ~

“I'll take crazy over stupid any day.” 

~ Joss Whedon


You knew that once I stopped writing about what I was supposed to be writing about that eventually I would have to nerd it up, right?

Hi. My name is Kelly. I am a nerd. I hope you know who Joss Whedon is. If you don't, I'll tell you.

He's like a junior godfather in the nerd world. He created, helped create, wrote or directed The Avengers, Toy Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Angel, an episode of Glee and a whole bunch of other stuff.

I'm not at all surprised that he said something like this:

“I'll take crazy over stupid any day.” 

Not even a little bit. He creates characters that are practically geniuses, but quirky...so this makes sense. He's an atheist, but a humanist, both of which have been well documented. If you aren't familiar with humanism, it's essentially the idea that our value and importance as humans is inherent, is not subject to or dependent on the existence of a higher power. We are urged to be the best version of ourselves. Whedon in particular would say that this is essential, because this is all there is. 

On to the quote.

I have to say that I agree with him. Honestly. I certainly have my crazy side, and by crazy I mean like certifiable because there is actually shit wrong with me and also just regular run of the mill crazy.

Maybe it's just me, but when people call other people crazy, I don't think it's an insult. Maybe that's because I have lots and lots of my own crazy. Maybe it's because I don't see it as a way to categorize or diagnose people. I see crazy just as being this: when someone does or says something that doesn't seem logical to us. 

That doesn't, by the way, mean the other person is crazy at all. Misunderstood, maybe, but not necessarily crazy. I mean, they could totally be deluded or irrational or unhinged for whatever reason, certainly, but I don't think the term as it is commonly used refers only to those people. 

The truth is that most of us do what we do for a reason, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else at the time and might make us seem crazy. That reason stems from our unique and individual life experience, perspective, morality and so on...which is the awesome thing about us humans. We're all so different.

I've joked with friends about this, particularly with family issues. I don't think any of us believes our family is totally sane and normal, but at least we understand this particular version of crazy. We're used to it. We know how to deal with it. That doesn't make it normal at all, it just makes it familiar.

Having said that, I'll take crazy over stupid any day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

As for stupidity, I suppose there are a few ways to define it. Stupidity can just be a lack of intelligence, which may or may not be something that anyone has any ability to control. I don't think that's the kind of stupid he's talking about though.

I think he's talking about the oblivious type of stupidity. The people who fail to understand what is happening because they lack the interest or effort required to figure it out. The people who believe whatever they are told, even if it's completely wrong, because they don't bother finding out for themselves.  The people who don't think about what they are doing or saying before they do it. The people that you can't have a rational discussion with. The people who can't or won't understand logic and reason. The people who can't entertain the idea that other people may have differing ideas and opinions or experiences.

The people who make you want to bang your head on the wall.

Those people. 

Give me crazy over that, please.