Sexy, Flirty, Girly

When you come of age in a house with older sisters, they get "Victoria's Secret" catalogues mailed to them, and life is good.

I don't know how they settled on the name "Victoria" to be the emblem of enigmatic sexiness and playful roll-around-on-the-bed-ness. I mean, when I think of "Victoria," I think of this:

Which probably isn't the visual Victoria's Secret is going for.

Nevertheless, the brand has been wildly successful, not just with females-- their target audience-- but with burgeoning young males, semen practically leaking out their ears. I don't know if 14-year-old boys still get all kinds of jazzed up upon their first laying-on-of-eyes at a "Victoria's Secret" catalogue, now that the internet has made pornography as accessible as a wheelchair van, but there is no denying the utterly seductive power of those suggestive poses, those languidly draped legs, the come hither eyes, the mirage-like nipple protrusion from beneath a paper-thin camisole.

The pouting.

The hair.

In Spring, 2011, the most recent Victoria's Secret catalogue (that arrives at our house with comforting regularity after I purchased a delicious summer-weight bathrobe for my wife) there isn't a single model with hair shorter than below shoulder-length. Which says a lot, I think.

By the way, it's awfully difficult to focus on what I'm trying to talk about with the catalogue opened to page 67. There are eight, count 'em, eight photographs of barely-dressed vixens all vying for my undivided attention, which is, of course, divided by eight, if not sixteen if we're counting all the breasts.

Okay. I turned the page. I'm okay now. Well, sort of.

So, right-- the hair. While there are no models with short hair at all, anywhere to be seen, I was happy to note the inclusion of an incredibly hot Indian model, who looks great in the upper right-hand photograph on page 69 (sorry, that's really the page number, I can't do anything about it). So, while short-haired pixie-ladies may very well be sorely under-represented, at least Victoria's Secret is getting a little bit more international in flavor.

You know, when I set out to write this post, there were actually some intelligent points I knew I wanted to make, and I knew I was going to have to use the photographs in the catalogue to support my contentions, but, now that I've been leafing through this thing again, I'm sorry to report that my brain has turned to chili. I'm just another manschlub, staring at countless photographs of seductive, inaccessible women, while my wife crafts at the table across from me, and I feel dirty, horny, stupid, uneducated, ill-equipped to engage in reality-based thoughts or pursuits, and maybe that's the point. Maybe the point is that these catalogues, at the very worst, sell unrealistic ideas of sexuality to men and encourage women to hate their bodies, and, at the very best, they sell poorly-constructed, mass-manufactured sexschlock.

Hmpf...

I wonder what kind of bra Queen Victoria used to wear.

Look at Me: I'm Thankful (Again)

365 days ago, I let my small corner of the blogging world know that, on Thanksgiving Day, 2009, I was thankful for my undershirts.

Aren't I clever?

This year, I don't know what it is, but I'm not feeling especially clever. Or witty. Or funny. Or subversive. Actually, I don't know exactly how I'm feeling as I start to type this post, which is always a little dangerous, because I have no idea how this post is going to turn out.

And, honestly-- I kind of like that. It's pretty much the only risk I take in life. Besides speeding-- and I speed in a Volvo, so it's almost not even that risky anyway. Speeding in a Volvo is a bit like having bareback sex with a photograph of a prostitute.

Thanksgiving is a tricky time for renowned cynics and muttering bastards the world over, and I struggle with it, too. On the one hand, it's predictable and cloying-- inspiring some of us to pen odes to our undershirts. On the other hand, as a nation that takes everything, from its oxygen to its Blackberries for granted, a little dose of Rockwellism once a year couldn't really damage us too irreparably.

It wouldn't hurt this generation to bow its head and hold hands around that anachronistic thing called a dining room table-- not one little bit.

I've undergone a lot of changes between the Thankgiving of my 29th year, and that of my 30th. The smarmy, winking little brat in me wants to be funny and light this year, to poke holes in and poke fun at tradition and syrupy Little House on the Prairie idealism-- and the burgeoning adult in me wants to cry and hold my family, people who unbelievably seem to grow more distant and unfamiliar every week-- or is it month? I forget.

What I can't forget is that I am both the punk and the idealist, I am the smiling bugger and the thin-lipped grandfather-in-training-- always thinking, obsessing over what is right and what is expedient, and how to tow the line between the two. Or if I should. And what would it matter if I never decide to make the choice at all?

While I was writing this meandering mess, it popped into my head that I ought to be thankful for my sanity, a notion that has crystalized now that I work at a mental hospital. Sorry-- "crisis center," let's be politically correct, if we can stand it. I've now worked there long enough to see patients get discharged and re-admitted multiple times, and, even sadder, I've worked there long enough to see names from my ancient past, and not-so-ancient past, on the admitting sheet, and I have chatted with these gowned ghosts in the halls, and I know that, for one synapse misfiring, or not, it could have been me. Without the I.D. badge, without the keys. And that is enough to make anyone bow his brown-haired head at the dining room table.

Of course, I'm still thankful for my undershirts. Even the ones I've had to force myself to throw out between this year and the last.

Happy Thanksgiving, my dears.