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What can I say about my man of mine? First of all, I can’t really say he’s my man but, for the hours we are together he IS.  My Israeli lover………sighing……sighing….sighing.

 So, I started thinking about this today. not for any reason in particular, just a random thought. “Why is shaving such a big deal?”. I always get the stink face or a laugh when I show off my unshaved legs….usually in the privacy of my own home. I get the usual comment “Girl you need to shave your legs!” same goes for my pits. 

 Here’s the deal, I only shave for these reasons, 1)wearing something short 2)sex or possibility of sex 3)My hair has gotten so long it gets stuck in my socks and pulls 4)I just can’t stand to look at it anymore. Sad thing is, I can look back and find times when I did the same thing to others but, why is my question. Why is it such a big deal and when did it start? 

 According to an article “Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture” written by Christine Hope for the Journal of American Culture we were tricked browbeaten into it by the beauty of advertising. Something we are still falling victim to. Look it up check out the article, it’s an interesting read. The idea was to trick women into believing that underarm hair was unsightly. This was around the time when sleeveless and short fashions were becoming fashionable. Ads stated “The Women of Fashion says the underarm must be as smooth as the face” ahh the power of advertising. Shaving the legs became more popular with the popularity of Betty Grable in the 40’s.

 So, what is it? How is it that we here shave shave and shave and women in Europe don’t and have no problem not doing it? It looks and feels nice but, do we really need to waste our time shaving when we’re wearing pants and long sleeved shirts and sweaters? And let’s not get into the whole shaving of the nether regions I mean come on! that is the biggest pain int the culo I have ever encountered. Shaving, waxing, depilatory creams and so on. What an economical waste.

 Don’t you think it’s a little freaky that everyone wants to be smooth as a babies bottom?! And wanting to permanently get rid of it…what about when the ice age hits again? We’re gonna need that hair to keep us warm.

 Anyway, I think I’ve run out of things to say for the moment on this subject, not even sure I’ve made total sense but, whatever. I’m so sick of standards and how people think you are supposed to look. dress this way, wear this label, put on some makeup and fix your hair just so. Well, no thank you. my feeling is if I do that and meet a m an he will expect this of me all the time and that is not me, my get ready time will double, maybe even triple…..screw that noise. Love me or leave me. No false advertising here…..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1200272/
  Back in November of last year, my sister and I watched La Mission and it brought back memories of my youth and my father. La Mission stars Benjamin Bratt, Jeremy Ray Valdez and Erica Alexander. It takes place in the Mission District, my favorite San Francisco neighborhood. It is about a Mission District OG coming to terms with his violent tendencies and his son’s homosexuality.
   La Mission is rich in music, color, and flavor of the Bay. Even though the movie had a kind of serious tone I still giggled every time someone spoke. They said things like “What it do?”, “A’ight”, and “Know what I’m sayin’?”. To hear Benjamin Bratt say those things actually warmed my heart and put a smile on my face. This movie was to me so authentic to what I’ve seen and heard everyday growing up here in the Bay Area. When I watched the extras and found out that Benjamin and his brother Peter grew up in Glen Park which borders the Mission and that the character Che’ (Bratt) is based on a relative, I was like “Ahh soo!” it makes perfect sense now.
   As I watched the movie I had memories of being with my father and his friend Uncle Juan. Though my Dad never owned a lowrider or wore bandanas, pendeltons or Ben Davis, he still introduced us to that culture unbeknownst to him I‘m sure. My Dad is an avid fan of Cheech and Chong. As children, those were the movies we bonded over. Cheech in a way (I think) was our  introduction to the lowrider lifestyle. I can remember listening to the oldies in the front room of Uncle Juan’s victorian home in West Oakland with my Dad as they drank and smoked pot singing and telling each other stories of their youth and giving my sisters and I history lessons in music. Both oldies and jazz along with the latin music of our culture. Uncle Juan had an eclectic collection of music from Tito Puente and Celia Cruz to Vicente Fernandez and Thelonious Monk. So one minute your listening to Miles Davis then the next someone has made mention of someone else and a particular song and he’s up and flipping through the collection searching for that one piece by James Brown or War that you just HAVE to listen to. We also used to go to lots of festivals and concerts for Cinco de Mayo. There we got to experience Flaco Jimenez for the first time and Los Lobos and to see vatos, cholos and lowriders up close and personal.
   I guess the movie really reminded me of the beauty of my childhood. The closeness of my parents to their friends, the music, and the food that evokes such feeling of warmth and love just by the mere mention of it’s name or simply seeing it on the table in a movie.
   Yes, there were bad times also. My Dad had that machismo that most men had back then. He wanted nothing to do with the homosexuals and he wasn’t too fond of  asians either. He had to give up those ideas when he found that one of his closest friends was gay and when he found that one of my closest friends was asian. It was actually really confusing and hurtful at times to hear my father say the things he did back then because he and my mother never taught us to hate anyone.

    So, for all the hurtful things my father ever said or did to my sisters and I, he also taught us to love everyone and all things. To be loyal and loving to family and friends and to treat them both as one and the same. I think I may be babbling a bit and may have lost track of what I was initially trying to say. Anyway, I just wanted to say that for me La Mission was a trip down memory lane full of rose colored memories of my father.