If I Weren't a Lady...

I cried in front of one of my professors today. This breaks several of my rules:

1) Never ever show negative emotion. (negative emotion: sadness, anger, irritation, frustration)
2) Never show negative emotion in front of people.
3) Never, under any circumstances, show negative emotion in front of superiors.

However, I think my inadvertent and infuriating display may have gotten me a higher grade in the class than my work would suggest. If I were less earnest and more Becky Sharp (and how grateful am I that I read Gone With the Wind and not Vanity Fair at the formative point in my life) I would be very pleased with my display.

Instead, I'm just pissed, and not even able to appreciate the fact that my appalling ratio of homework assigned to homework completed will probably be forgiven. I'm not even sure why. As it turns out, my professor has been through similar therapy for the same problem I have, and she was incredibly understanding. She probably hasn't lost any respect for me. Just me. I hate not being in control of my emotions.

On a completely different note, here is the post that I wanted to write yesterday but was too busy not-doing my physics homework to write up.

This entire discussion is sparked by the fact that I bought a new sports bra last week. It's orange, and provides the degree of support I was looking for--I wanted those things strapped down good, since sometimes they get in the way when I climb, and I am paranoid about saggage as I age.

But that thing is damn hard to get into, and out of--I almost got stuck the first time I tried to take it off. And I look pretty much like a boy once it's on. Which--it's nice to have that option, but they still look like boobs that have been strapped down as opposed to smaller boobs.

It's funny, because in high school I would have killed for the figure I have today. And today I'd give nearly anything for a guarantee that when I'm 55 or 60 my tits won't be halfway to my knees. Give and take, I suppose.

A final note: I read Gone With the Wind in my grandmother's house in probably about....sixth grade, maybe? plus/minus a year or so, I'd guess. It was quite a revealing read; it was the first book I'd read where the heroine was a complete and total bitch and yet I loved her. Unconsciously, I think I picked up a lot from that book: the proper way to flatter a man, the way to combine flirtation with competency to get through life, and the importance of having a teeny tiny waist. One of the lines has always stuck with me...as the heroine, a woman who only follows the rules of "lady-like behavior" as long as there's something in it for her, says, "oooh, what wouldn't I tell him, if I just weren't a lady!" Or something.

I wish it were acceptable to shout "bitch, get off my boyfriend" at people.

I didn't read Vanity Fair until sophomore year of college, but I immediately recognized that if I'd read it at a more impressionable age, I would have turned out very, very differently. I'd have learned to flirt to manipulate the people I wanted, to be truly completely heartless, and to bank everything on my charm and looks.

This makes me curious--what are other people's formative books? Who do you emulate, consciously or unconsciously?