flexagon | Beautiful Stranger

I failed to get Beautiful Stranger in the mail in time for the retreat, which is probably just as well, since I would have gobbled it down on the plane and ended up leaving it in Mexico.

miyyu posted about it a while ago and I had promised to share my thoughts when I read it... so here they are. (You can read

miyyu's very good description of the book, about a young woman obsessed with beauty and cosmetic surgery, on her post.) I've been diagnosed with OCD and I've had minor cosmetic surgery (totally unrelated things for me, as far as I know) so I guess she thought I'd have some perspective or something.

I thought the most poignant scene was when, in college for becoming an anchorwoman, the narrator Hope was told not to expect to coast by on her looks. She had planned to do exactly that, she admits, "not because I was vain or lazy but because I thought my looks were the only thing I had to offer the world". I actually understand that very well. Once upon a time, I planned to coast by on my book-smarts because I thought that was all I had to offer the world. I think it can take a long time to realize that we're all package deals, and we all have some brains and some beauty and some people skills, etc, all of which we can use to our advantage. Just, um, some things more than others. :)

That's probably the deepest thought I got out of the book; I was one of the few who might have liked more detail on the many surgeries Hope had, as I found that pretty fascinating. As expected, I had some mixed feelings about the easy access she found to all those surgical procedures. I am all in favor of people being able to transform themselves as they like, and in fact I feel pretty strongly about that -- enough that, if you pushed me really hard, I'd probably admit to being a transhumanist. I think it's neat that we have technology to do more of that self-transformation than we once could, at least in the realms of the physical and medical. On the other hand, the idea of a doctor purposely making a patient feel insecure about her looks in order to tempt her into more procedures just makes me queasy. For example, there was a scene early in the book where the doctor talked Hope into a "two for one" deal on procedures when she was already checked in for one procedure. No way should any responsible doctor do that. Even taking (drastic / surgical) action on a decision reached in, say, the last 24 hours, is a bit iffy in my book. A good doctor (like, for example, the nice man who did my sterilization) should make sure the patient has thought the decision through and really wants it before he does a) any cutting or b) anything permanent.

Last and least, and somewhat coincidentally, the book definitely reminded me what a thrill it really is to make permanent physical changes. I was already making plans to get my armpits laser-treated when I read it, and now I'm looking forward to that just a little bit more.* Still no tattoo plans though... I just can't ever decide on a design. And as a side note, geez, how many permanent things I have had done! I've lived a pretty normal life, and yet I can list these: pierced ears, braces, wisdom teeth removal, belly button ring piercing, corrugator resection**, sterilization. Oh, and a couple of mole removals. I have plenty of friends who've had LASIK, appendectomies and all kinds of other things. We all transform ourselves every day just by what we eat and what we do, but it's also become normal to be a lot more dramatic than that. :) I'd be curious to read other people's lists in the comments, if anyone feels brave enough and can remember everything!

* Lest this post ignite a fiery comment-war about armpit hair: I don't care one way or the other about having armpit hair, really. I tried not shaving for a while last fall and I liked it just fine. I even liked the sort of androgenous look it gave me... thought I looked kind of tough. Society, however, does care, and I just don't care about my not-caring enough to make a giant statement about it, which means I'm going to do the easy thing and save my fightin' energy for other issues. I would like to go back to not-shaving, though. Not shaving is nice.

** A procedure that cuts the muscles that pull the eyebrows together. I used to have a single, really deep crease between my eyes at all times. It made me look much more stressed/angry than I was. I still have a little wrinkle, much shallower; the muscles managed to knit back together, but less efficiently, changing my wrinkle pattern. My emotions are portrayed better on my face now, I think.