I went tanning tonight (gasp! faint! horror! what? tanning? yes!) and learned something about myself in the process.
(Don't you just love these heartwarming after-school-special-type beginnings? Gag. Yes--I went a wee bit overboard on the cheezeball factor. Life is cheezey in spots. Whatever.)
Okay. So, tonight was my first time tanning. I was waiting in line to sign up and get my splendid dark spectacles, completely surrounded by college-age women, all blonde and thin and already tan, and I felt like it was my first day of school or something. I'm 5'6" and 160 lbs (which is 15 to 20 more than I weighed in college) and have been working in a basement with flourescent lighting for the past two years. I am not at my spiffiest. Sigh. Soldier on.
I get to a room with a plastic bed (or time machine, if you watch Family Guy) and the dude kind of rushes through the spiel and I ask a question and he sort of answers before he dashes back to the desk to deal with the other people in line (for we must get our post-spring break tans. Yes.) So I strip down (I'm naked in semi-public! Dear god!) and climb into the bed and push the button and the blue lights go on and I've got my eyes firmly shut with the splendid dark spectacles over them and I'm trying to relax and then I remember something:
I forgot to lock the door.
And so, for the next eight minutes I am completely freaking out. Every sound that I hear is people opening the door to my little tanning room and making fun of my chubby, naked body with THREE MONTHS WORTH OF LEG HAIR! And I couldn't get up to lock the door because I am terrified of those blue lights and what they might do to my eyes and what if I go blind and oh my god everything is awful.
And then it was over and I got dressed and left. And no one pointed, laughed, or combined the two so I think I was just imagining the public mocking. (but I will shave my legs before the next time I go. Probably.)
So, perhaps I had a point around here somewhere? Ah yes. The point is that I haven't really written about much other than knitting here, and it was because I feared the public point-and-laugh (or worse, the chasing-everyone-away). Ridiculous, really. I started this blog to join the crochet/knit/yarn community in a bigger way and it's silly to think that I could only write about yarn-related topics for the rest of my life.
If I tell the internets (or the 7 people who read this stuff) about my weight and my leg hair... I don't know what will happen. But it beats hiding behind yarn.
(oh my god, I just visualized playing hide-and-seek in a huge yarn shop. That's probably what heaven is like.)
(and did you notice the kind of (okay, a lot) cheezeball ending? Full circle, man. It's awesome.)
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9 comments:
OOOOOH I can so see that happening to me... *cringe*
Hide and seek in a yarn shop? Can it be hide and nobody looks for you or at least they can't find you if they are looking for you? Now that'd be heaven...
bwaahaaahaaa!
That's the sort of thing I would do. Or I would just lie there ~imagining~ that I'd forgotten to lock the door, even if I had.
I'm gigglesnorting madly.
I did something equally retarded on one my brief forays into a tanning booth. I (are you ready for this?) forgot to put the little goggles on. So I had to squish my face up all weird to keep the evil rays from entering my eyes, because (like you) I was terrified of opening them to remedy the situation. *sigh* Should I even bother mentioning that it was the only time I went tanning?
And you have posted enough pics of yourself that I can say that you are super cute and shouldn't worry that you are not a bulimic college girl! So there! :-)
My sister tells me that she often falls asleep while tanning. My experience was far, far away from "relaxing."
SheCrochets- at the desk they have pictures of what your eyes will look like without the goggles--horrible. I wasn't taking those babies off for anything.
Oh, I feel your pain! I spent 10 days on the beach in Mexico with my husband & in-laws, feeling like a bloated albino manatee. When I showed my friends & other family pictures from the vacation, everyone asks "Where are the pictures of you?!" I stayed safely behind the camera the whole time.
Now that I've lost 10 pounds since then, I want a "do over" for my vacation!
Hey hon,
I got that daisy ring from Michael's for 59 cents.
I went tanning once a looong time ago and was too shy to get completely naked despite the fact that I knew I was going to be completely alone in that little locked room.
No way this girl is going to point and laugh at ya. Share away!
My boyfriend teases me about being sun-phobic. Not because he think I should be tanned leather, but because he believes the sun is good for helping moods, particularly his since he has seasonal depression.
You know, back in the day, way way back in the day, milky white skin was preferred in women because it was a sign that they were ladies of leisure and did not need to work in the blazing sun to support themselves or others.
There you have it, the sun and tanning is evil.
(Yes, I realize there is no logic there, but it works for me. I'm glad your experience wasn't horrible if not relaxing.)
looks like this is an issue that resonates with us, huh?
i don't mean to be a giant downer, but wade's sister-in-law went tanning ONCE before her wedding, and ended up with an abnormal looking mole afterwards that was cancerous but didn't spread. she had to have the mole and a sizeable chunk of skin around it removed. she said the dermatologist's first question was: have you been tanning? because i guess he had seen this before.
so... for that and a million other reasons, i do not recommend the tanning beds. they do not sound like fun places, they do not sound like safe places, and they perpetuate an unrealistic and unhealthy standard of beauty.
ok. i'll get off my pedestal now. tanning places are just one of many places that piss me off.
besides, you will be tan compared to my white ass, so think of yourself as "relatively tan". that is, relative to margaret, everyone is tan.
p.s. i love albino manatees!!!!
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