Summer Body Blues

The body keeps the bore (and MORE)

Having a body has never been more annoying than it is now, at this point in my life, at this point in human history. Among all the magical procedures someone could have on their body, I think the one I’d like the most is a partial lobotomy where they remove the part of my brain that makes me care what I look like. “Suck out my bad jelly!” I’d say, fully awake. On an evolutionary level I understand the reason to “look good”. Like, duh. If I’m a fuckable young turtle looking to get slow-humped, I need to look good in the right place at the right time. Or smell good. Or whatever. To have babies, of course. But the level to which I care these days feels…inordinate to the sort of base level a person should. My person. Me. 

Now, as a 34 year old whatever, I find myself aging visibly in a way I never thought possible, and by that I mean…”naturally”. Please, hold your puke until the end. This process has triggered the one insecurity I have found myself in the past spending hours, days, and money on, funneling whatever energy I have into the bottomless Jar of Body Image Issues. When I was young, probably as early as eleven years old, I started counting calories. I was, at the time, ninety-five pounds. My mom did it with Weight Watchers around the same time. While no one in my family ever remarked on my weight, which dear god I am so fucking thankful for, this sort of learned behavior just kind of caught on, probably ‘cause it made me feel like I had some semblance of control. As a depressed pre-teen (see photo)

I could control the way I felt about myself (and, in my mind, how others felt about me) through how I looked. Specifically, if I didn’t weigh a hundred pounds or less I might as well be dead. Yikeys!

It’s so easy, TOO easy, to fall into this pattern for me. Every day I’m directly marketed to. Everything that is “wrong” with me can be “fixed” for sixty-five to five-thousand dollars. At least once a month I ALMOST book an appointment to have my double chin, I guess you could say, removed?? I compare pictures of myself now to ones from three years ago and I go…”Huh!” and end up buying a spooky LED mask that’s supposed to zap(?) my skin into submission until I look like I did before I lived a little TOO much life. The body positivity movement has, positively, subverted so quickly, put its whole pussy into capitalism so carelessly, that being “happy in your own skin” is now only really possible if you have enough money. So says the algorithm, so says the mined data. I think about all the time and energy women specifically have spent on looking a certain way (in ways they might not really want to) throughout history and I get…DEPRESSED! Imagine what could have been accomplished, avoided, invented by women with that extra time…Okay just realizing this is a sad one, f*lks! 

I hate talking about this shit because there are people who could articulate this so much better than I, people who could write four-line poems that sum all this up so beautifully you wanna cry. And much like thinking about it, writing about it, these days, feels so Who Cares. And you know why.

I think about the kids who have nothing to eat today all around the world, more likely than not starved of joy and life because the American government disregards them, discards them, for profit, for power. I think about the free flowing water coming from my faucet, how that when I drink it in the morning it makes me feel alive, how that experience has been robbed from the people of Gaza. Can you imagine not having that? Their bodies need what my body needs, what your body needs.

I am grateful for the body I have, how healthy it is, and yes, what it looks like. But if I can’t, if WE can’t step outside of ourselves, something that all this dumb shit on our phones is making it harder and harder to do, then we’ll never fully realize the importance of our shared humanity. I think. I guess. That’s all to say, it doesn’t matter what my body looks like, it matters how it feels when I see someone who needs help, and it matters what it does when I do. That’s all I gotta say about that today! 

HARD PIVOT

I should probably remind you here that I am actually a comedian (lol). Here are some things that are going on with ME in that REGARD that you might be interested in. I love you!

PODFUCKS

I’ve gotten to be on some fun podcasts lately (can you believe it?), like Straightiolab, Stavvy’s World and Lady to Lady. Tomorrow I’ll be on WTF with Marc Da Sharc Maron wherein I reveal too much about myself in a short amount of time. Hopefully it doesn’t change your already shaky opinion of me! 

TOURING

AUGUST 27th to 30th I’ll be opening for the wonderful Shonali Bhowmik and her band in CHARLESTON, GAINESVILLE, SAVANNAH, and ATHENS. Find tickets HERE.

Here’s the fantastique single Up All Night from her new album One Machine At A Time which comes out July 26th! Two days from now, basically! No shit!

As always, you can check my Wix dot com ass website where I post my show dates and sometimes, accidentally, pap smear appointments.

CLARE’S SONG CORNER

I’ve been obsessed with this song for a long time now. I heard the Oh Sees cover of it first and, through the least amount of research possible, discovered the original version. YOU (a dweeb) might know The Creation from their brief but explosive appearance on the Rushmore soundtrack with “Making Time” (that’s how I know them too, I am no better than you or anyone in your family). I recently covered this song on my brand new Telecaster that I play so infrequently it’s almost obscene, at a very fun show where comedians who can (kind of) play music do stand up sets and play a song of their choice. I think I did…O.K. I still don’t know power chords. Don’t hit me!!!

Off the album groovily titled “Our Music is Red — With Purple Flashes”, here is “If I Stay Too Long” by Da Creation. 

Thanks for reading! Thanks for everything! Thanks in advance for the twenty bucks you’re about to Venmo me for just “being me”!

<3 Clare O.