---

9:06 p.m. - 2006-10-02
spt flaws take one

Self-Portrait Challenge for October:

"Look beyond the surface of your life, dig into your imperfect self and reveal it to us. I want to see the down and dirty you, the messy, gross and ugly you, the side of yourself that you always try to hide, give us some insight into your dreadful secrets. This can be your physical self or your personal space or within your wider life. Be not afraid!"

I'll be honest - when I actually put some thought into this it scared me. I've always been very up front about my faults, my problems, my mistakes. Actually pinpointing WHAT it is that makes me do these things? Not so easy. And a bit hard to face.

This is what I've come up with for this week:

Admittedly, these pictures were taken in jest - we were getting ready to go out and couldn't resist playing with the horror masks in the cabinets.

However. HOWEVER.

Let's talk about one of my biggest flaws (is flaw the right word for it? continual fuck up is what comes to mind): I have terrible judgment where men are concerned.

I'm sure many women say that or think that about themselves. In my case, its glaringly hugely ragingly out of hand.

I did learn it from the best after all: my mother is on husband number seven. Five of those guys were all before I was the age of six. She married drug addicts, alcoholics, bikers, musicians, artist; child abusers, molesters, rapists, wife beaters, liars, cheats, thieves. And once a murderer. Go mom. Of course she didn't just DATE these guys. She married them all. She bailed them out when they went to jail for beating her. She left us home alone with the maniacs. She turned a blind eye to their treatment of us. And none ever stuck around long.

Here I am, 20 years later, repeating Ma's mistakes with gusto. Already divorced. Going through a string of boyfriends trying to find the right one, still holding out hope for "real" love.

I don't PURPOSELY choose bad guys. I have never looked at a boy and thought; "wow he's tough. He's a bad boy. Hook a sista' up!!". No, 'bad boy' isn't my type. Creative is my type. I'm strongly attracted to artists, musicians, intellectuals. I've never dated a regular joe schmoe. I've always been with the boy in the band, the painter with streaks of pastels still in his hair on our first date; I'm the girl who swoons over a guy who makes awesome mixed CDs, who writes ballads about ex-girlfriends, who gets on stage and sweats it out while I dance my little heart out. Perfect example: Chip (formerly bandboy #256) and his band learned and played a cover of a Billy Idol song as a surprise for me this weekend. I, of course, thought it was the best damn thing in the world (it helped that he pointed me out in the crowd and said, 'this is for my lady').

While I can't say that ALL artists are assholes, I can say that a great deal of genius is born from pain and struggle. Those beautiful ballads are attached to painful memories, those fantastic impressionistic pictures are dredged up from introversion, disorder, confusion. Most of those hot artist types are fucked up emotionally and mentally.

And I? I am too free with my heart and I fall in love with these fucked up little boys, hoping that I can help or that they will change or, if nothing else, I can be along for the ride.

It's not as if I'm exactly a paradigm of sanity and virtue myself - is it?

---

before//after

previously...
this weeks to do list - 2007-09-24
a fool on any given sunday - 2007-09-23
annacquato - 2007-09-22
being a cheerleaders mom - 2007-09-21
I am a ray of sunshine - 2007-09-21