![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jul. 4th, 2008 12:24 amLast week I spent three days doing computer deinstalls and installs out in Framingham. The hours were a pain; I had to leave the house at 6:30am to get there on time. I could have left a LITTLE later but didn't have the traffic calibrated to know how much later (I ran into delays on the stretch of the Expressway leading to the Mass Pike, and they get worse as you move toward the peak of rush hour), so I didn't experiment for a three day contract. The work was OK but unexciting; basically it consisted of disconnecting a lot of cables and stuffing all the accessories into a plastic bag at one end, and unpacking the bag and reconnecting everything at the other. I got to make a little money, which is always a good thing.
I couldn't take a job like that permanently if it required commuting by car; it would be a tedious way to go broke. The cost of buying, insuring, and operating another car would be far too high; I'd have to get paid more. I can borrow Marian's car for three days, and the fixed costs on that one are already paid, but not for months at a time.
On the job, there was the manager, Don, two other techs (one 30-something, the other 60ish), and me. Don has somewhat long hair (though not as long as mine), and it was tied up in a tiny ponytail at the back. One of the other techs commented on it, which lead to a conversation about hair. Don said that he had grown it out to annoy his kids. Younger tech said that he hated having hair; he wished he'd go bald, but it doesn't run in his family.
I was asked whether I found my hair annoying. The quick answer they got: no. (It didn't seem the time or place for a philosophical discussion, especially not one where I would have been so far from the attitudes of the other three people.) But the total conversation told me that the attitude of Younger Tech toward his body is very different from mine. No, I don't find my hair annoying; I actively enjoy it. I like the fact that I feel it when I move, and that it makes me more aware of my body and its movement; when I wear dangly earrings at parties or dances or events or conventions, I enjoy those for the same reason. The impression I got is that YT finds being aware of his body annoying; he would rather move through the world unconsciously.
Maybe it's related to why I love to dance. Most forms of dance are, at some level, about being aware either of your own body, or of somebody else's body, or perhaps both. (One exception I can think of: some Balkan folk dances that have very repetitive movements and droning music. Those are designed to put the dancer into a trance state.) Body awareness isn't the only thing that dance is about, especially performance dance, but it's certainly a part of the joy of it.
I couldn't take a job like that permanently if it required commuting by car; it would be a tedious way to go broke. The cost of buying, insuring, and operating another car would be far too high; I'd have to get paid more. I can borrow Marian's car for three days, and the fixed costs on that one are already paid, but not for months at a time.
On the job, there was the manager, Don, two other techs (one 30-something, the other 60ish), and me. Don has somewhat long hair (though not as long as mine), and it was tied up in a tiny ponytail at the back. One of the other techs commented on it, which lead to a conversation about hair. Don said that he had grown it out to annoy his kids. Younger tech said that he hated having hair; he wished he'd go bald, but it doesn't run in his family.
I was asked whether I found my hair annoying. The quick answer they got: no. (It didn't seem the time or place for a philosophical discussion, especially not one where I would have been so far from the attitudes of the other three people.) But the total conversation told me that the attitude of Younger Tech toward his body is very different from mine. No, I don't find my hair annoying; I actively enjoy it. I like the fact that I feel it when I move, and that it makes me more aware of my body and its movement; when I wear dangly earrings at parties or dances or events or conventions, I enjoy those for the same reason. The impression I got is that YT finds being aware of his body annoying; he would rather move through the world unconsciously.
Maybe it's related to why I love to dance. Most forms of dance are, at some level, about being aware either of your own body, or of somebody else's body, or perhaps both. (One exception I can think of: some Balkan folk dances that have very repetitive movements and droning music. Those are designed to put the dancer into a trance state.) Body awareness isn't the only thing that dance is about, especially performance dance, but it's certainly a part of the joy of it.
