Vanessa Woznow

Lover of the Russian Queen

Holy Toledo.

I honestly cannot believe how crazy this week has been. I thought because I had taken Monday off, the days would magically fly by, and what a far flung fantasy that turned out to be!

Waking up today I was feeling more Forrest Gump, (post-multiple cross country runs) than Flash Gordon:

This morning, as has been the case for the past few days, as soon as our alarm went off, Nymeria announced her arrival in the bedroom by jumping up on the bed, and slathering us with her kitty kisses (and not to mention some very enthusiastic whisker rubs/headbutts.)

Also, our little gal purrs like the mother of all trains. Believe you me – the dream of a few extra minutes of glorious shut eye is resoundingly destroyed what with this fur monster-cum-locomotive, luxuriating next to your ear.

CIMG7170 - Copy — One day I will expire from cuteness overload.

It’s a good thing I’m madly in love with her.

When I dream tonight, I’ll dream of this:

…

Vwoz in Russia 076 — "BED AND BREAKFAST"

The lobby of our “bed and breakfast” looks as though a bomb had gone off only minutes prior to our arrival. Plaster crumbles off of the walls and coats the exposed concrete floor. Someone has been painting, but it seems that they have left halfway through the job. Perhaps to buy more cigarettes, judging from the healthy number of butts that litter the floor. They have also left their paint splattered socks and a coffee mug half full of coagulated brew. A stench of ammonia hangs in the air.

We climb the stairs of a building that was built over one hundred years ago, and is only now undergoing cosmetic upgrades. Our guides from the university tell us that all the structural work was completed after the implosion of the Soviet Union.

Due to the state of the place, I can’t help suspect that Nikolai and Gleb are not really here to help us to rooms, but instead to kill us and make off with our identification and luggage. The door we stop at looks like the entrance to a bank safe I have seen in every action movie I have ever watched.

Nikolai turns to us as says, “By the way, don’t really expect breakfast. Bed you can rely on, but I’m pretty sure that sign is lost in translation.”

Right, I nod.

Also, he turns his face closer to mine. “Did you bring bathroom paper?”

I did, I say. One roll.

“Every restaurant you go to, get more,” he says.

…

One morning, during the second week of my trip, Aimee, a young teacher from California asks me if I would like to accompany her to the banya.

We don’t have a workshop to attend and because I have six new mosquito bites and can already smell the alcohol seeping out of my skin, I say yes. I haven’t exercised once since arriving in St. Petersburg and I figure if I can’t go for a run, I might as well sit in a sweltering sauna and sweat the booze out.

On the walk to the spa, I buy an apple blini.

The building is old, but neat looking with a carved wood banister and great frosted windows. At the front office we purchase our dried birch branches, cardboard sandals and scratchy luffa sponges. A young woman with heavy shadowed eyes tells us that level four is the woman’s area.

As we ascend the staircase, we pass numerous elderly men, sprawled out on small benches, with miniscule towels clumsily strewn across their genitals. Though most look as though they are asleep, we catch many of them eyeing us and we pass by.

Once we enter the woman’s only area, we are greeted by a petite lady, with bleached-blond hair, who sits behind a cluttered desk painting her nails. She asks us if we are excited for the sauna and when we tell her yes, she expresses delight over the fact that we have chosen her place for our first time. She hands us each a long, white sheet and a scratchy burlap hat.

Supposedly we are supposed to wear these once inside the sauna; it is a uniform that will protect us against the heat of the room.

(It doesn’t.)

Disregard whatever anyone has ever told you about Russian saunas. Russian saunas are HOT.

Hotter than hot.

It is a hot that screams, and bites and slaps and stings. It gets into your mouth, burns down your legs and punches you in the face. And it is unrelenting. It is so hot that you can’t just take off your clothes and walk right into one.

CIMG8491 — I often found myself going to my happy place (aka this picture)

You have to prepare.

This is done by travelling back and forth between the two smaller saunas, located in a different area of the spa. There is a “dry” sauna (supposedly cooler than the “real” sauna) and a “wet” sauna where you immerse yourself in a warm, slick fog that vaguely smells of freshly-picked lavender. The contrast between the arid and moist should raise your core temperature to certain degree – that way you won’t immediately expire upon making contact with the debilitating and searing broil that is the banya.

(It doesn’t.)

The sheet that I was given at the front (supposedly to wrap around my body) soaks completely within seconds of my entrance into the “dry” sauna. I give up and take it off.

I also notice that no one else is wearing the burlap hat I was given. I was told that it works well to keep the body’s core temperature low, but I just feel the Western fool sitting around in a scratchy Gilligan-inspired cap.

We soak our birch branches is a bucket of hot water so they don’t cut us when we start to flagellate each other. (Flagellate truly being the operative word.)

Finally, we feel as though we are ready to enter the real sauna. As soon as I walk in, I realize that no one is truly ever ready.

No one.

Vwoz in Russia 248 — Okay, so this isn't the woman who beat me up, but they look very similar.

I am then accosted by a seventy-eight year old babushka (I know this because it was the only thing I could actually understand coming out of her mouth was her age) who announces that as it is her birthday, (or at least that is what I think she was saying) and that it is her responsibility to exfoliate my skin with not only my branches, but hers as well. She flings me down onto a wooden bench with the ease of a man fifty years her junior.

I cry out in pain because the wood is so hot it is literally burning my skin – my most sensitive parts feel as though they are about to pack it in and leave for a less harsh climate. For the next five minutes (though it seems like five years) I am thwacked from head to toe on both of sides of my body.

Finally, she stops. “Okay!” she barks. “Get up and you do your front!”

At first I don’t understand, but she soon rectifies my misunderstanding with a good hard swat across my chest.

Do your front! She admonishes me. Do it!

So I do. I do my front. I stand there, in the sweltering heat, self-flagellating with a dried birch branch.

My entire body feels as though it is one big blister.

Okay, enough, my drill instructor barks. Out, out! She shoos me out of the sauna and into a shower stall. This may be a little hot, another woman tells me, before they turn on the faucet. Out pours water fit for a teapot.

One minute, they tell me. I begin to picture how my death will be transcribed back in Canada. “Canadian women steamed in Russian bath. Death ruled non-suspicious due to stupid hat.”

Vwoz in Russia 182 — Two days later, out at Peterhof, still looking for my sanity.

Just as I reach the point of no return, the water is turned off and I’m shleped across to the room to a whirlpool filled with ice cold water.

“Jump” I’m told.

I do.

As my feverish body makes contact with the frigid expanse of the pool something becomes crystal clear. I suddenly realize why Russian women live so long.

They are made of steel.

Baptized in this fire, they are made of steel.

Between a rock and a hard place

Hey friends –

Does anyone have some extra coffee beans to share? I’m feeling lethargic as all get out, and the idea of round-the-clock java is becoming more and more appealing each time I blink (because for serious, the levers on my eyelids don’t seem to be working at the efficiency I am used to around here. Can I also get some WD-40, stat?)

For the past week I’ve been running myself ragged at the gym, (DAMN YOU TEAM AMERICA! Your inspiration will be the death of me!) pretty much to the point that I am almost too exhausted to sleep at night .

I know, I know – this sounds absolutely absurd, but it’s true. As of late I am having a heck of a hard time getting (at the very least) an uninterrupted six hours of sleep. Add this to the fact that we had a full moon last night and well, it’s a feat and a half that I actually managed to catch a dozen winks (let alone forty.)

Walking to transit today my mind was in a bit of a fog. Standing on the platform, I felt like a living statue, hard-rooted to the structure of the station, the tracks, the rails – waiting for a ride I couldn’t possible ever take, bolted in place.

I wish I could say that this meditative mood had lasted the entire ride into work.

Seeing this I though 1.) Man, Nashville`s uniforms are pretty ugly...2) Wait, - this article is about what!?

This, alas, wasn’t the case. In truth, I was blasted from “blasé” to “blazing” in two seconds flat, from the minute I sat down and unfolded my Metro newspaper and saw this:

Now, in case you cannot read anything beyond the headline (due to the overall crap quality of my phone’s camera) it must be pointed out that, unfortunately, this is not an article covering the dynastic civil wars for the throne of England that were fought betwixt 1455-1485 by two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet (whose heraldic symbols were the “red” and the “white” rose, respectively).

I mean, it’s totally easy to see how one would jump to this conclusion, right? Because in truth, what else could the author possibly be referring to?

Sometimes, my naiveté astounds me.

So it would seem as though Canada is finally making that last fateful leap into the twenty-first century (or you know, fully endorsing the complete – moral and otherwise – bankruptcy of humanity) by getting it’s very own edition of The Bachelor.

Ugh. Just typing those words makes me feel like I need to go barf in someone’s shoes.

Now, it’s no stranger to those who read this blog that I am a pretty big (self-fashioned) champion of women’s rights, both here in my native land, and across the globe.

That I live in a patriarchy is a truth – that I refuse to be silent about it, is another.

To me, there is pretty much nothing as blatantly anti-women as this shit-stain of a show.

This is how I look at it:

Let’s take a notion, one that is not only incredibly antiquated and destructive, but also pervasive, accepted, and continually propagated: that a women should find love, at whatever the cost, whether it be through public humiliation, or violence against others, or by fulfilling degrading and infantilizing stereotypes – because sweet mother of pearl, the fleeting, scripted affection of some third-rate sports start/actor/steel conglomerate tycoon is better than nothing, AM I RITE LADEEZ?

Let’s take this notion, exploit it, profit hugely off of it, and then make it seem as though we were doing the contestants a favour, because they’re all just back-stabbing, fame-whoring, ditzes, who were probably on the path to Nowheresville, AM I RITE VIEWING PUBLIC?

See, this is what really kills me about the whole situation. Either way, you’ve roped women into coming on the show because either 1.) social pressure has led them to believe that because they are of X age and single, they are fated to a life worse than death-by-trash-compactor (à la Star Wars) because they have yet to find and secure a partner, so in order to stave off said horrifying fate, they find themselves willing to do anything or 2.) we’ve created this horrifying counter culture where people love to watch individuals (both men and women) who equal parts fascinate and repulse them. Random Dick and Jane’s are catapulted into super-stardom for acting like amoral idiots, careening around our televisions with their private parts, vomit streaks, and prowess for poor decision making on display for all the world to see (or laugh and point at) – to the point where people are willing to sign up for these shows because they know it will make them famous.

This says nothing to the fact that the crazier they act, the more famous they will become, up until their saturation of trash media becomes complete, and then the backlash will begin, and a collective amnesia will fall upon the masses and no one will be able to remember why they even liked them in the first place, which will serendipitously take place around the start of the next season of America’s Next Top Bottom Feeder.

And so the cycle continues.

The second part of what kills me about this show, is knowing that the reason they keep coming back (seriously, it’s like Jason bloody Voorhees somehow managed to reincarnate himself into a TV program here) is that women watch it.

And they watch it in droves.

The fact that this is a successful, long-running show because of its popularity amongst women kills me.

Why does the degradation of others give us such personal satisfaction? Is it because when we construct the perfect other, it gives us a pass from objectively looking at ourselves? Is because giving in, or even becoming a part of the problem, is so much easier than working towards an attainable solution?

Like I said up-thread, I am a champion for my sex through and through and my belief that these shows are poison to the advancement of our cause, in no way changes this – it just adds a new layer, or dimension to the situation.

In all honesty, it makes me feel like a bad feminist.

How do I fight for autonomy and choice, while at the same time, stomp around lambasting both the women who go on these shows, and the women who watch them?

I suppose at the root of it, I just really wish that we lived in a world where these misogynist cultural memes didn’t exist, let alone thrive.

This ad was also on skytrain with me today. It sums up pretty well how this whole thing makes me feel.

Then no one would be involved and I wouldn’t feel so overwhelmingly conflicted.

Further, this phenomena makes me questions other elements of our society – how damaging are these types of programs for men? And what kind of screwed up social expectations geared towards males do they highlight? What kind of lessons are we teaching, promoting and reinforcing that are damaging to the entire human population?

These shows are brutal, bar none hands down for everyone involved.

Seriously, it only reinforces my belief that we need to drop the ideas of raising “good girls” and “good boys.”

We need start working on raising “good human beings,” period.

Come my one hundred and tenth birthday, I don’t want to be lying in the comfort of my deluxe iron lung, watching a woman’s heart break in half, because some cyborg cosmetic dentist dumped her in front of twenty billion people (and taking into account what I imagine will be people’s thirst for brutality, she’ll probably be literally dumped into a pit of starving lions, or anacondas, or fox news correspondents – what have you.)

And believe you me folks, there’s not enough coffee in the world for that.

There and back again

My husband loves Mike Holmes.

whistler and downtown 039 — One of M's biggest projects was the ski jump for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

When I asked him to sum up his fascination with the man, he responded:

“BECAUSE HE MAKES IT RIGHT! COME ON!”

Erm.

Awesome.

As a journeyman carpenter, he also enjoys the practical aspect of Mr. Holmes’ show.

“I never really got to see the construction of a house from beginning to end. I like how much I learn watching him, and I like seeing how Mike has grown as a contractor, how much he’s learned over the run of his show. He’s obviously committed to helping people, but also encouraging others to perform the best possible work – not only among the people he works with, but within the industry in general. They just do really good work.

“It also gives me lots of great ideas of what I would like to do with our house.”

Um.

REALLY awesome.

I too like Mike. Not necessarily for the same reasons that M does, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t pretty darn affecting to see how grateful people are for the help they receive from Mr. Holmes and his crew.

(I may or may not cry regularly during the last ten minutes of the show.)

For reality programming, it’s certainly not your run-of-the mill “how desperately can one person embarrass themselves over the course of fifty-two minutes?”

(Aka it’s one of those exceedingly rare “positive” breeds of reality tv.)

I mean, other than highlighting all the shoddy work being down by crap, pass-the-buck companies, episodes are enough to make the hardest heart grow three sizes (plus Mike probably has a tool for that.)

And at the very least hopefully viewers be extra careful when considering having work done on their house.

Remember: References people, REFERENCES!

…

This weekend we trekked up to the Sunshine Coast for a mini getaway.

We were gone only two days, but the weather during this time was all over the map.

(This is, depending on your taste, one of the best or worst qualities of life on the west coast of British Columbia. For my part, I like the variety.)

At the ferry terminal, I espied these two birdies, hanging out, having a chin-wag together:

These two feathered friends stirred something in me. The morning of M’s and my wedding, he sent me a beautiful bracelet to wear with my dress. This was the card that accompanied the gift:

YES.

…

Whist on the ferry we encountered some insane fog. I went out to take some photos and the gentleman standing to my right turned to face me as I snapped away.

“It’s like we’re heading into Narnia,” he said laughing.

I nodded. “Either that or the Gray Havens. Being on a ship and I all.” I answered.

“Of course the Gray Havens!” He exclaimed, almost as if he was sad that his brief lapse in nerd knowledge was intensely disappointing to him.

“We’re not exactly crossing walking into a wardrobe here,” he muttered.

Love it.

This was taken facing Horshoebay:

This was heading towards Port Melllon:

Driving past Sechelt, up towards the cabin, we encountered a lot of fog.

I'm picking up a fog bank on my radar...

The route all of a sudden became a little bit more mysterious, and a little bit more exciting. While the mist gave our travel time more character and a decidedly more somber moo (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), needless to say that the views were not what you normally get when heading up that way.

Not that I’m complaining.

…

As soon as we arrived, I took some photos of the dock, before warming myself in front of the wood burning stove.

Winter.

Heaven.

Later that evening, I froze my feet taking photos of the how spooky the water looked, lit-up amid the night boat lights and fog.

That is some exorcist stuff, if I ever saw it. EEP.

For the rest of the weekend we ran, cooked, watched Eli Manning and his compatriots (no double entendre intended) run over New England’s defence, and played more rounds of Trivial Pursuit Genius Edition (released in 1981!) than we could count.

I was seriously on the verge of peeing my pants at some points, I was laughing so hard.

Every time one of us drew a history card, and it happened to be something like, “Who was Truman’s vice-presidential running mate?” we’d lose it, before guessing some random “American” sounding name.

“Ummm, Harold Williams?”

Classic.

Although, my favourite of the night was:

Who lived at Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, with his pet duck named Dab Dab?

Good grief, I was crying with laughter as I attempted to choke this question out for M. For serious, I now know my life will never be complete until I acquire a duck and name it Dab Dab.

Holy quack.

…

This morning the water was completely frozen over (and again I froze my little feets when I ventured out to take these photos at 7:30am. The clouds looked like milk, frothed, and spotted pink in places, making candy-coloured striations fly across the length of the sky.

IMG_0316 - Copy — Beauty, beauty, Beauty.

As I ran my favourite ten kilometre route (in the whole wide world) my breath hung close, suspended in the frigid air. Couples out walking their dogs nodded to me, and I smiled and waved back, concentrating on my breathing, and stride length.

At one end of the loop, the fog clung to the tall firs, and spindly pines, the air smelled like fresh sod and salt cod, my cheeks stung cold, and my hands burned hot.

My feet, legs, hips, arms – back and forth, one and two, sprinting to my finish line, where freshly strewn pine needles, and the contented call of water fowl mark my place in my self-timed race.

I was home.

(Just like Holmes.)

I’m perfectly calm dude

Today is my birthday.

According to http://www.thisdayinmusic.com the #1 song on my day of birth was “I wanna know what love is” by Foreigner.

Classic.

This year the theme for the day is “no muss, no fuss.” For the last four years I’ve partaken in some pretty wild festivities, so I’m a little relieved that this year’s agenda is defined by two words:

Low key.

Tomorrow M and I are heading up to the cabin for a couple of days – we’ll run, read, rest and relax. (Probably catch some Superbowl action too.)

Two years ago, to celebrate the fact that I’d spent a quarter of a century alive and kicking on this big old ball of green and blue, M and I hosted a James Bond dress-up soirée. We instructed our guests to come costumed as their favourite bond villain, bond girl, or well, you know, bond bond, and then proceeded to get smashed on martinis (shaken, etc., etc.,) play poker and black-jack, and engage is some high-profile, high-hilarity espionage.

I think I ate more olives that night then I could have if I lived an entire year on the island of Crete. (And believe you me, that place is chock-a-block FULL of olives. I spend the majority of my time there marveling at how anyone could ever fathom picking them all – much to M’s equal parts amusement and chagrin.)

What was so great about the evening was how everyone really went whole hog when it came to their preparations for the night. We had many Bonds, a couple of Qs and one Rosa Klebb who completely stole the show.

I dressed as Vesper Lynd, while M decided on Gobinda, the evil henchman from Octopussy. (FULL DISCLOSURE: M is half-Indian so don’t start getting any crazy ideas here).

He looked so fabulous it was unreal. Plus he carried around a set of dice and kept pretending to crush them in his death grip – bloody hilarious and seriously flash. For more info please see:

The party took place just as I was beginning to buckle down and write my graduate thesis, and I told myself that after the night’s shenanigans were through, I wasn’t going to have any fun until after I rocked out on my defence, and finished my master’s.

It was a tremendous “last big bash” – a good lead in to three months of thirteen hour days in self-imposed isolation, spent hunched at my computer, writing about immigration policy and refugee integration schemes.

I’m happy to say that I was successful in both of the before mentioned endeavours, although in hindsight I am pretty sure that those months of suffering would have passed in a much less painful manner had I actually engaged in some light-hearted social fare every now and then.

But alas, as they say, live and learn.

Birthdays are a great opportunity to sit and (subjectively) contemplate where you are in life, where you’ve come from, and where you would like to go.

This week I’ve reflected quite a bit along these lines – trying to figure out the things I am happy with, the things I still have to work on, and the things I have overcome in the past year.

People keep asking me if I am alright, or if something is wrong, particularly when I tell them that this year I’m not interested in doing anything big for my birthday.

CIMG2892 — While I may not be contemplating my life in this exact spot (I wish!), I am contemplating nevertheless.

I’m guessing that this muted (and therefore I’m apt to guess out of character) demeanour of mine has led many to believe that I’m either down in the dumps (I get this quite a bit when I’m not my normally boisterous, extroverted self), or sweating over the fact somehow, despite my best efforts, I have managed to age yet another year.

This is not the case.

In fact, I’m having a hard time convincing people that I am downright a-okay. I’m just meditating on the past, and mulling over my future.

Which, at least to me, is a positive endeavor.

One thing I am working on is giving myself credit for the things that, well, deserve credit.

Seriously, it’s a chronic behavioural problem of mine. I am almost pathologically incapable of giving myself a pat on the back.

And although this problem used to be much worse than it currently is, the fact of the matter remains: I have tremendous difficulty truly taking pride in my triumphs, for fear that in doing so, I will come off as a big-headed, conceited jerk.

I’ve learned that the easier way to to combat this fright (and avoid that outcome) is to to ignore my successes, and instead immediately soldier on to my next goal, or activity, without so much as a second glance back.

I’ve been wondering about this quite a bit, and asking myself why I, like so many young people I know, are quick to downplay their accomplishments, almost to the point of parody?

Why do we squirm at the idea of complimenting ourselves, or accepting recognition from others?

Growing up I had a very real, very tangible belief that if I ever dwelled on that which I did well, people would right me off as self-righteous and self-involved. Being labelled “stuck-up” was second only to “slut” when it came to my biggest fears in terms of my (real or perceived) social identity (that second moniker is fodder for another topic, on another day.)

So I never took the time to congratulate myself, or accept the compliments of others (and if I did, it was always handled with a heavy dose of self-deprecation, or an attempt downplay what it was I had achieved), and I pushed to take on more activities, which in turn saw me place endless pressure on myself to excel– only to once again, ignore my successes.

This created an incredibly negative feed-back loop, defined by stress, insecurity, fear, and pressure. That my mental and physical health deteriorated because of this problem is an understatement – this warped, chronic need to over-achieve (but never acknowledge it) took over my life, manifesting itself in eating disorders, compulsive exercising, and long stretches of insomnia.

While I would like to say that I am completely over this affliction, I would be lying if I did. I can say however, that the place I am today, is almost completely unrecognizable from where I was ten years ago.

I am no longer sick, I am much less stressed out, and I am always working on putting less pressure on myself.

I am still committing myself to numerous engagements, because they make me happy, while at the same time trying to make sure that I can self-validate through this process.

I am learning how to say “good job”, and “thank-you” (with no self-deprecating follow-up).

So while this year, I may not be throwing a grand bash to celebrate my birth, rest assured that I am celebrating.

Early birthday card, delicious birthday cookie.

I’m just doing it a little quieter, that’s all.

And that is definitely a-okay.

She works hard for the money

On days like today, when the weather gods and goddesses are smiling down on the fair (or otherwise) inhabitants of Southwest BC, there is a tree visible from my office window.

Standing alone, its branches spindly and ramrod, reaching for the heavens, it glows golden, as though kissed by a rogue ray of sunshine – it has been set aflame.

Glow little tree, glow with all your might!

It’s a spectacular sight to behold, and one I so often miss on days dominated by cloud cover and rain.

In an attempt to jazz up my work days, I have been making an attempt to incorporate more pretty things (most of which are predominately dresses) into my weekly wardrobe.

Another factor playing into this decision was my (still current) self-imposed restriction on purchasing new goods – this ban has been making it harder and harder to recycle my most tried and true outfits. For real, there is a limited number of times I can wear my pink cable-knit sweater before my skin will end up permanently dyed rose, and my skin tattooed with that unmistakable braid pattern.

Eep.

Plus, I have a pretty solid collection of frocks that don’t see much action outside of weddings and fancy events, which unfortunately can be few and far between in the winter months. Just seeing them in my closet makes my heart skip a beat – I’m not one to purchase things willy-nilly. If I buy it, it means that I like it.

I like it a lot.

A closet dominated by “work” clothes. Don’t worry, I’m a champ with the iron.

I am also not ashamed to admit that during the long stretches of time where I don’t have a chance to wear these beautiful outfits, sometimes it can be pretty fun to play dress up or have an impromptu fashion show, trying out different shoe-dress combinations – whether I’m on my own, or I’ve gotten M to act as my audience or critic.

(Mostly audience, sometimes critic.)

Yet, to be honest, getting into this new work-fashion grove was a little harder than I thought.

I was really nervous to even try it out.

Why, exactly was this, might you ask? I asked myself the same question.

It has been pretty darn interesting to sift through the many reasons that I found this decision to be much more of a challenge than I’d originally imagined it to be, particularly when it came down its execution.

It was not just a simple change of clothing to me.

I should stress that it wasn’t the opinion of colleagues or random passersbys that played into this aversion (in fact, I receive wonderful, reassuring, reactions, not to mention blush-inducing compliments every time I have donned a new outfit) – at the root of it, it was me.

Mostly I was afraid of looking like I had mistakenly showed up to a corporate workplace, instead of my intended destination (high tea with the Queen of England – aka Helen Mirren) after having taken that wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Or you know – that I was ten years old.

But mostly, and here I am a bit ashamed to even type out the words, I think I was afraid that the more feminine I dressed, the less likely I would be taken seriously – at the different lunches I go to, presentations I give, meetings I attend, interviews I conduct.

I am much younger than many of my colleagues, and I find that I often make myself hyper aware of this fact.

I put myself on edge, feeling as though I have to prove that, despite my age, I am a bloody rock-star at my job.

As such, if I dress too “womanly,” (combined with my obvious youth) I might command less respect, whereas when I dress “manly”, I have already knocked down one barrier (whether it be real or not – at least in my current position.)

Now, I understand that in reality, in my current situation, this hypothesis is most likely total crap. Assigning a gender to my clothing choices, and then evaluating my job performance (or at least how others may perceive, and therefore assess my performance) is pretty ridiculous.

However on a macro level (and micro for many, many others), both age and sex are two huge factors that negatively impact an individual’s professional success.

(I am also aware that the age factor is also a problem as you reach the other end of the scale.)

So it’s interesting to note, that while I am not in a position myself to be harmed by these attitudes, I have already internalized them, rendering an outsider’s imposition of them onto me a moot action.

In one word this is completely crazy.

CIMG8764 — One of the dresses I was originally too afraid to wear to work.

I’ve worked with enough people to understand that confidence in your abilities, coupled with a stellar work-ethic and solid output outweighs whatever outfit you may or may not be wearing on any given day – particularly if you present yourself as a professional, put-together individual.

And yet I stress over whether or not a beautiful, semi-formal dress, coupled with a cardigan/suit jacket and flats would somehow strip me of my professional legitimacy.

Thinking about this has really tripped me up, and opened up many other questions.

For instance:

When I wear a suit to work (specifically if I wear it with a tie, as I often do) and I doing so because I like the aesthetic of the outfit, or am I subconsciously trying to fit a preferred mould (aka presenting myself as a “male” somehow legitimizes my position?)

Or, am I able to just write it off to nothing more than the fact that I have always been attracted to men’s clothing, and because I am tall and lanky, this style of wardrobe works particularly well with by body type?

Or, at an even simpler level, am I just nervous of overdressing at work? As much as people may dislike the chronically underdressed, those who show up daily, ready for a black-tie formal, rarely escape criticism either.

At the root of it, I know this:

I first and foremost pride myself on presenting myself as a professional.

I just need to remember that first and foremost I am a professional.