Catching Up, Corsets and Curves

I haven't journalled much in the last couple of weeks. I've been really busy and sick,  but since I have some time now I thought it'd be a good idea to settle some of my thoughts and organise them a bit.  I called my doctor's office today and I have to be off school until Thursday. Because my fever came back I might still be shedding live virus. Of course that means I'll have to contact my professors and I'm not looking forward to that at all.  Before getting sick though things were going relatively well. I did my presentation for Brit Lit. It was a bit of a farce how that came about. Me and another student thought we were presenting on the same day. It turned out it was her day and I'd read the schedule wrong, but because of the subject it made more sense for me to present and her to go later. So I did it, nerves and all and I guess it went okay. One thing I've always noticed about myself is that I have really poor recall when public speaking. I used to ask my partner to keep tabs on what I'd said so I would know what I'd said later.  I remember when I was very young I'd asked or been volunteered to give an impromptu speech at a retreat. I gave it and the adults were amazed. But I told my best friend at the time that I didn't remember what I'd said and didn't understand what the big deal was. She just gaped at me and said something about how I'd just gotten up and spoke in front of several priests and nuns and 75 students for nigh on an hour and I couldn't remember. I shrugged said nope can't remember a thing and slung my pack over my shoulder so we wouldn't miss the bus.  During my presentation it was the same way. I had an outline and I really tried to stick to it, but once I got going I was all over the place and went from the top of my head. My profressor said it was a very cogent presentation and I wanted to laugh. How could it be cogent when I wasn't following the outline and bounced from topic to topic. I am worried though that I wasn't in class the week after, nor will I be this week. I really can't afford to fail I must be at the peak of my game for the rest of the semester.  My mother called yesterday. It was her birthday and I forgot until mid-conversation. Our relationship is better now that we're not in the same place and I don't have to constantly deal with her barbs and judgemental attitude. I miss having my Da around everyday though. Sometimes I do wish they'd divorce, maybe she wouldn't be so bitter then. They're such opposites. But then I can't imagine them not together.  I think my Da had a brief affair when I was younger and that strained things too. My mother is the type that was bred to be a mayor's wife or something. Very superficially poised and gracious. Things I never was though I spent way too long trying to reach the standard she set. She denies it all now, says I make it up because I'm bitter and selfish (not mentally ill, never that). But it was harder for my sisters and me, she's so obsessed with looks and other people's perceptions of you. I had a school dance in middle school and couldn't find a dress she approved of. She told me it was because I was fat and she wished we were at "home" because there were places in Kingston that still made corsets and I would need one to put me in the right shape. If I remember rightly (which I might not, but I think I do) I was 13, 5'7 and muscular since I played basketball and softball back then, I might've weighed 75-80lbs. I wasn't really heavy, but I wasn't a petite wisp of a girl either and that's what she wanted.  My youngest sister was pudgy, always has been, and I thought she was the most beautiful adorable child for it. By the time she hit puberty, my mother had despaired of finding corsets and I remember her ordering my sister into a leotard that was much too small for her then attacking her with ace bandages until she was the right shape for her dresses, when we went out for formal occasions. Of course, being pudgy, my sister has also always been buxom for her age and my mother was appalled. Somehow that accident of genetics translated into my sister bing slutty, and despite her behaviour or intentions she was never allowed outside unless under strict supervision.  Sometimes I wonder what kind of women we would be if our mother hadn't been such a tyrant. If she'd just loved us as we were and told us we were beautiful no matter what we looked like. I think my sisters are beautiful. Myself, not so much, but they are. And they've overcome a lot of my mother's conditioning. My younger sister says it didn't root in her because I was always there to tell her she was pretty no matter what Mama said, and that she could eat whatever she wanted and that I told her all the time she was beautiful so she just learned to tune my mother out and only heard what I told her. One of her favourite movies is Real Women have Curves, she says its because the characters are so much like our family, and that it's been important for her to claim her curves and her sexiness. I'm really proud of her for that. Even if she does sometimes get on my nerves, in the way of all little sisters. With her I know I've done at least one thing right in my life. Sometimes I wish my older sister wasn't so much older that she was grown and out of the house when I was growing up. Maybe she would have done the same for me and I wouldn't have so many problems with self-loathing.  My mother tries to blame me being bisexual on my attending college away from home (and her supervision). She'd probably blow her top if I told her I think sexuality is both nature and nurture and as far as I'm concerned all people are, too a degree, bisexual and it's just some of us are able to acknowledge our appreciation of all genders and our desires more readily. So the nature part, that's in-built, genetic programming, gift of the divine, whatever you want to call it. The nurture part for me, ironically I think, came out of a need to recognise as much beauty as I could because I can't see it in myself, so I see it in other people. I see men and women as desireable and sensual and beautiful and wonderful because those are things I can't associate with myself.  So...achy and lethargic today. Fever's gone down again (yay!). No one has bugged me yet today (even more yay!). I am not making supper. I am going to sleep and maybe write my professors if I can stop being twitchy about it. And maybe I'll actually finish An Unquiet Mind I'd like to say I've finished it by the end of the year. Heaven knows I've picked it up enough times.