Speaking of unladylike pursuits, I'm getting weary of the grappling/self-defense module in karate. Every time I show up for class there's an odd number of women and I end up with some teenage boy rolling around on the mat. Two weeks ago my heavily adorned/pierced/spiked partner kept losing his bling all over the mat. We had to keep quitting mid-grapple to find his bits and bobbles so we could safely continue. (I did not want to get flipped over onto one of his stray spikes.) The kid looked like he'd been attacked by a rabid Bedazzler. I returned to the dojo last night to find the same situation again--only this time I partnered off with this kid whose only metal embellishment is found in his mouth--braces. Even so, there is nothing ladylike about being flipped to one's back and stuffed into a chokehold while your feet splay in different directions and your hair gets caught in your mouth.
Nor is there anything ladylike about clomping around a muddy garden in Wellies, yanking out stinging nettle while cursing under one's breath. And sweating. Profusely. My gardening pursuits do not remotely resemble Emily Dickinson's. She gardened wearing a white dress.
In particular, this white dress. I'm trying to imagine the hours I'd spend with a spray bottle of Oxy-Clean if I wore a white dress to garden. Amazing to consider she gardened wearing a white dress and wrote pretty little poems about the experience. But she didn't have children, so there was time for laundry and poetry.
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown --
Who ponders this tremendous scene --
This whole Experiment of Green --
As if it were his own! Such truth in her writing.Alyssa's book has me thinking about "ladylike," a term that conjures up images of Southern belles and proper matrons sitting with their ankles crossed while sipping tea. I believe a "lady" had good manners, doesn't emote too much and tries never to offend others. "Ladylike" had more to do with behavior than some obscure Victorian code of where to find a salad fork.
Thank goodness reading is a ladylike pursuit--you can cross your ankles, sip your tea and pick up Alyssa Goodnight's Unladylike Pursuits without compromising your cleanliness or decorum! Enter to win a copy of this FABULOUS book by leaving comments through Saturday. Spill it, reader. What makes you feel particularly unladylike?
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