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| Beautiful Venus simply arrived, her intelligence has never been defined. Unlikely to have blogged |
But not as hard as: How beautiful am I or you?
So hard I can't imagine anyone well-balanced enough to make conclusions about himself or herself, publicly, in these terms. Or anyone equable enough to form the other half of the conversation. Even when we tackle these questions in the privacy of our own noggin there's a reluctance to arrive at specific words, vague feelings have to suffice.
If you disagree, Tone Deaf is at your disposal.
All I know about my own intelligence is that it has been "improved" randomly, willy-nilly. It lacks a formal structure. I can be clever for seconds but not for minutes.
But how about my beauty? Just recently part of my face has been a battleground as a dangerous medication has fought to suppress the cellular implications of keratonitis. The result: a yellowish crust covering 3 sq. in. I surprised myself by being able to ignore this, even forget it. I did however cover it with adhesive plaster for my singing lesson; V watches my face regularly to check the rightness or wrongness of certain singing symptoms and I felt this ghastly curd tart might be a distraction.
During adolescence I was convinced I was physically ugly but as I got older I concluded I was as good-looking as I needed to be and left it at that. But was the curd tart reviving adolescence? The answer seemed to be no. Might that be due to arrogance? Unchanged within, I was insensitive to what was happening outside.
The yellow crust has gone, leaving baby’s-bottom smoothness in bright red. In one sense I regret this, there’s more to be said. Shaving was a bastard.
We have a common experience of National Service. During training I well remember all "sprogs" being ordered to shave every day, even if some had never done so before. One unfortunate was still going through teenage pimples (face covered with them) and asked to be excused. The training sergeant flatly refused and inspected him closely each morning. As a result his whole face became a field of scraped off pimple heads and ran with pus which dried to a crust. In the end he had to report to the medical officer, was excused shaving by the usual chit and became the only recruit with a nascent beard (legally).
ReplyDeleteYour post brought back the memory.
For months prior to my knee operation my two upper front teeth have been wobbly. Since 1980 my exceptional dentist, Mr. N, has done everything he can for me, but he had now told me there was little alternative than to have a dental plate fitted. I prevaricated for weeks, but in view of the forthcoming op I gave in and went back to Mr. N. I have little vanity in my appearance to others and have virtually no concept of being fashionable, but I found I was appalled at the thought of appearing in public with no front teeth. Fortunately Mr. N , involving three visits, contrived to do the extractions and fit the new plate together on the final day. As it happened there was no need to even remove the plate during the op, but my story demonstrates that most people will draw the line somewhere concerning their appearance to others..
ReplyDeleteAvus: Your memories of National Service are more fragrant than mine but what you mention characterises the sort of thinking that ends in such military "triumphs" as Gallipoli and the Dieppe Raid. Stubbornness has its place in warfare when a group of soldiers is hard-pressed, but it has no place prior to the encounter. Even worse is the military inability to predict the most likely outcome - as here. Pimple plus blade equals blood flow. Wisely military law decrees (or used to decree) that suing the bad decisions of one's superiors was a no-no.
ReplyDeleteTo which someone of an aphoristic turn of mind said: Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. I trust you were never stirred by The Grand Old Duke of York.
Sir Hugh: The subject was, of course, vanity. We think we aren't vain but, as the Great Dane said, "How all occasions do inform against me." When young I yearned to wear long trousers. Quite casually father handed me a pair picked up from somewhere or other. I went to school full of pride that my legs were totally covered and was laughed at from AM to PM. The trousers were black and white striped, the sort butlers wear and even now I know that days last longer when you're young.