Serena J. Cavanaugh :: Blog

April 28, 2009

How Lovely To Be A Woman!

Filed under: Beauty, Cultural Rants, Parenting — Tags: , , , , — serena @ 2:26 pm

Two things happened this past month that made me re-think being a woman.

 One, I watched the local grammar school performance of Bye Bye Birdie.

In one song the main character, 16 year old Kim, sings “How lovely to be a Woman,” in which she glories in her burgeoning figure, the privileges of mascara and high heels and all the perceived goodies of her passage into womanhood.

It ain’t lovely, I thought. Not one bit. You’ll get tired of the constant adjustments women have to make to (more…)

March 30, 2009

Feeling Old

Filed under: Beauty, Cultural Rants — Tags: , , — serena @ 9:50 pm

 

“Already?” my twenty year old niece asked.

 

“Yup,” I answered. “I can hardly believe it.”

 

We were discussing my thirteen year old and the fact that he is, well, a teen.

 

My niece surprised me when she said, “Wow, that makes me feel old.”

 

I chuckled – and it was in no ways a chuckle of delight, but one of bitterness. I had once felt “old” the way she did, and that was much, much more preferable to the “old” I feel now.

 

(more…)

February 1, 2009

Beauty You Foul Thing

Filed under: Beauty, Cultural Rants — Tags: , , , — serena @ 3:33 pm

Cosmetic Enhancement

Beauty isn’t just everything to me, it’s everything to everyone. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking of beauty (I wrote a novel about it), and besides it being the meanest, least rewarding object of pursuit of our times, it also haunts us the same way Catherine Earnshaw haunted Heathcliff – that is, relentlessly and only because we want it to. (more…)

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