Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 133: Joe

Prompt: "A sexy getting-ready song (but not literally 'Sexy Getting Ready Song,' which, to be fair, is really fucking great)"

Selected by Joe

"Going Out Swingin'"

The So So Glos

Kamikaze, 2016

Feeling sexy is an important feeling to be able to grasp in the palm of your hand. Not even traditionally sexy, just, like, feeling good about the way you look. Sexy, cool, sharp, whatever. One time I got drunk with PoYB pal Mandy B. and we stole hats from my then-roommate Kyle's hat collection and wore his hats out to a party at the Wister House. That was a weird level of drunk. It was the only time I wore a baseball cap in the past 20 years. I remember feeling good about the choice.

I haven't felt that level of good about myself in a good long while. I don't go out that often and when I do I'm certainly not "feeling sexy." Which isn't great but it's something I'm learning to deal with, with hopes that maybe I'll feel sexy at some point in the future but like for what and why and for who and etc. It's whatever.

It's whatever because there are other times that I'm feeling good in your typical day or week or month, feeling good about myself. Definitely not in the specific context of "getting ready to go out," but, I don't know, life in general. I feel good, sometimes. I sporadically feel confident in my abilities and my characteristics and my general appearance to the outside world. Not sexy. But something.

Important to occasionally document these occurrences, even if they are sparse and minor, so as to not get sucked into a spiral of gloomy thoughts. Forget about the times I've felt like shit about myself due to word or deed, and boost the signal of the handful of feel-good feelings. Of the top of my head, here are the times recently that I have felt good about myself.

• Dude on the phone says that I'm the first gov't employee he's spoken to who wasn't a true blue asshole.
• Doing something stupid and getting big laughs from a six-year-old and a four-year-old.
• Thumbs up from six-year-old after she gets a big save playing soccer goalie.
• Rode my bike for the first time in well over a year, maybe close to two, just to Aldi and back, 45 minutes round-trip maybe, but it was something
• A couple good shots in beer pong, a couple good slides in shuffleboard, a couple nice pockets in billiards
• By myself in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner and a song plays and hits me in just the right spot—happens once a night, I feel good about it, about myself, just for a split second each time
• Gave the perfect Philly-style indication of "don't bother me right now" at the train station, the squinty eye staring past and the puckering of the lips and the gentle shaking of the head a few times, universal language for "don't fuck with me right now, I'm just trying to keep to myself and listen to music on my headphones," to the goddamn Republican candidate for State Senate who appeared in front of me out of the blue at the train stop the other morning.
• Typing the final word on maybe three blog posts I've written in the past three weeks.

I typed the above list (and intro paragraphs) a few days ago, and haven't wanted to return to it since. If I had a better idea, I would've scrapped this whole thing and written about that, but alas. I'm stuck with this rather short list of tiny moments that made me feel good. Is this list short, comparatively? Or longer than your average small-life American dad? I don't know.

I do know that my hang-up here is that I'm rereading it and giving it a bad-faith viewing from someone else's perspective and worried that, I dunno, it's lacking in humility or something. I am thinking now about how I really don't know how to balance the "life is great" and "woe is me" essays on this blog. It can never just be, like, normal. It's always gotta be that this thing I'm writing about makes life expressly amazing or I'm so miserable about myself that I use violent imagery in my self-description. And then no matter which way the hammer lands, I get worried too about making it seem like my life is different, special in some way. I don't think that. I am not the main character. I know that. I am sorry if the above list made it seem otherwise. The curse of attempting to dramatize your own life.

I just wanna feel good about myself sometimes, and I get exhausted when I don't feel that way often enough. Being honest with yourself is so damn important but then when you're honest about the self and you can't seem to find much good in that self then where do you go from there?

This blog post is going to take a weird turn right now, but just bear with me. Or don't, since I cannot guarantee that I can tie things back to the original point (or even if there was an original point). We can all just pretend like we didn't even read this blog post like we always do, if you want, that's cool with me today.

I heard the term "service sub" for the first time about a month ago, and it's been rolling around in my mind since then. Here is the google-able definition: "Service-oriented submission is a term used to describe a submissive person who finds pleasure in performing services for a dominant." I think the term is mostly used in the bedroom, which, I won't embarrass my primary partner by writing about that in public right now. But I think the term can apply to life outside the bedroom as well. It just generally can apply to someone who feels pleasure, or happiness, or satisfaction in acts of service. I feel like this might explain something about me. That I feel my best when I'm doing something for others, and (crucially?) that I am being praised for doing that thing.

Probably important to note that, in terms of kinks or sexual lifestyles or whatever, this idea can be completely absent of adjacent humiliation kinks. I think this is where I've always been confused about myself there (I swear to god I'll be vague here, I'm not getting into the details) with the BDSM stuff, because being "subordinate" has always been presented—in pop culture, in whispers in the corners of the schoolyard—as the "dom" making the "sub" feel like shit, and the "sub" getting off on that feeling, at the hands of the dominatrix with the leather straps and the potty mouth, all that stuff. I've never felt the pull toward that. And so maybe "service sub" acts to split the difference a little bit. A way of serving someone and getting off on that service but also maintaining dignity. I'm not sniveling around, looking for a compliment. I'm earning that shit. I'm doing shit for others because that's the only way I feel good about myself.

I think that's why the above list is so short, and was so hard to come by. Because I was thinking about it like "what were some moments where I did something and it made me feel good about myself" and didn't think to add anything or anyone else to the equation. I don't feel good about myself without validation from others. I'm not going to feel "sexy" while "getting ready" unless I look at it like I'm getting "sexy" for my wife, who will be happy to be arm-in-arm with someone whom she finds "sexy." Do you see the difference? I don't want it to seem like I am lacking in self-esteem, and I don't want it to seem like I need constant validation from others. I wouldn't need that, no more than anyone would need to constantly Get Ready and Feel Sexy in Hot Clothes every single night of the week. It's just something to feel good when you feel like putting in the work. Getting Ready can take on all different shapes and sizes. 

This doesn't feel like a very coherent blog post, but I'm just gonna leave it. It's Saturday morning. It's whatever. Let's just forget I said anything at all.