8:50PM - Tuesday March 9, 2004
\"Mommy! Her hair is GREEN!\"
So, I was just thinking today about that show on Space that premiered last week called Mad Mad House. Big nose pagans and the like are all up in arms because it portrays witches and voodoo priestesses as "freaks." On the show there are ten "normal" people who have been sent ot live in this house controlled by the "alts," or poeple with alternative lifestyles. There's an uber-pretentious vampire guy named Don, the afore-mentioned witch and voodoo priestess, a modern primitive, and a naturalist. What was most striking about the first episode to me was the first gut reaction the normal people had to their hosts.

And then I wondered how many people look at me like that.

I mean, I'm really not all that conventional looking. I have a lot of facial piercings, including a large septum ring, some large gauge ear piercings that people could actually look through, only a smidge of hair and a few large tattoos. Add to this my bodaciously curvy bod and my refusal to cover up my body just because it's big, and you've got something that folks would stare at.

The thing is, though, I've had a lot of practice ignoring negative comments because I've been considered overweight most of my life. My momma always told me to let the meanness roll off me like water off a duck's back, and coupled with the fact that I really don't give a damn what most people think of me you can colour me pretty much oblivious. It's the people I've walkiing down the street with who notice the stares and the muttered comments. They're the ones who get all offended on my behalf. Sometimes I hear things, and yes, sometimes they're hurtful, but the people who say them mean nothing to me, so I try not to let it get me down.

The best, though, are the kids. They're just so blunt and curious--I love them. They're all "Mommy! Her hair is GREEN!" and "Mommy, why does that lady have an earring in her nose?" or "Why do you have so many earrings?" They're fabulous.

It's the parents that bug me. See, at that point they usually hush the kid, pull them away, and tell them it's not nice to stare. They also tend to look accusingly at me, as if freakiness were catching. That's the part that pisses me off, actually. I want to grab them and tell them that they'd be lucky if their kid grew up to be half as kind, caring, intelligent and just plain wonderful as me.

So there.

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