The Wayward Podcast

By Kim Rhodes & Briana Buckmaster

Episode 6 - Wayward Beauty

Dec. 3, 2018

Master folder link.

Briana - Sometimes you wanna talk about being pretty.

Kim - And it ends up making you feel beautiful. This is the Wayward Podcast.

Briana - This Briana Buckmaster!

Kim - This is Kim Rhodes.

Briana - I did full on newscaster for that one.

Kim - I enjoyed it, I enjoy your newscaster!

Briana - It’s like one of my little skills that I keep in my back pocket for when I need them.

Kim - Like right now.

Briana - Like right now. And the weather outside today is windy and mostly cloudy.

Kim - And noisy because we’re over an air vent.

Briana - Why are we over an air vent Kimberly?

Kim - Well, let me tell you Briana! We- This is our inaugural “neither in my closet nor on Skype” podcast, because we’re in a hotel room. So yeah after we talked-talkity-talk-talk we go make ourselves pretty.

Briana - It’s so fun for me to get dressed up. I know sometimes I get too dressed up but I just don’t give a shit  because it’s so fun for me. I love doing my makeup, doing my hair, having a reason to wear a dress because I don’t do that in Vancouver! Vancouver’s a pretty casual town, fashion wise, they have their own style for sure, which is quite cheek but it’s not necessarily my style.

Kim - It’s Pacific Northwest.

Briana - Yeah, exactly! So I don’t dress up that much, even if I do dress up for a date night or something I do get really excited to go out for dates night and mostly because I know I get to wear lipstick!

Kim - Ahhh! Putting makeup on and getting dressed up, I used to acquire with getting pretty and I am evolving into being more tired and more confident. I don’t feel the need to put on pretty as much.

Briana - Yeah.

Kim - I also see pretty differently in other people than I used to, and it’s nice because I really think that my ideal of pretty was defined for me early on.

Briana - By who?

Kim - My Dad definitely had a big impact on it.

Briana - Oh yeah?

Kim - My father, bless his heart, really felt that he had- that he was entitled to define other women’s body for them. When he found a woman unattractive, he took it as a personal offence to him.

Briana - Oh dear..

Kim - I used to go to the gym with him and he would get so angry at women whose bodies did not wore it the clothing that he- and he would get legitimately angry!

Briana - Oh no!

Kim - He was genuinely upset and I grew up with that. I grew up with the idea that someone else gets do define my worth and so it’s taken me a long time to realize I get to define my worth and by extension I allow other people to do the same thing.

Briana - For me, I think a lot of my thoughts about beauty are in reference to how I felt about how I looked when I was younger and I was very overweight when I was young so when I would do similar things as I told you before like I’ve such a nerdy makeup passion and when I was younger I was not the kind of tenager that would go out to parties, I would stay home and practice makeup skills and I did that every other weekend, all the time I would practice on my friends and I just loved it so much but I didn’t often love it on me, it just felt like there was this thing when I was younger that no matter how much makeup I put on oh-oh, there she goes ladies and gentleman, it didn’t quite feel attractive and so as I grew up, my body changed, my confidence changed, my wisdom changed, I moved a lot , opened up and expanded that bubble from you know, a small town girl, and lots changed, but I started accepting the beauty that I already had and started having more fun with my looks because I got to feel pretty and the older I get, the prettier I feel, and I think the more I experiment with fashion and my body, and how much I show of my body or don’t show of my body, and certainly makeup

Kim - What I got from what you were saying is that as a kid you were fascinated with it and the alchemy and the magic it could do but you didn’t do it on yourself because you knew no amount of makeup could do the magic you wanted it to do,

Briana - Yeah.

Kim - Like you- there was no hope in makeup. So what that translated to in my head was like a lot of times I realize I see putting on makeup as insecurity and that’s not true, you didn’t put on makeup because you were insecure, because you thought it wouldn’t solve so why bother, it wouldn’t do the magic that I wanted to. And now as you’re evolving into owning your own beauty you put on makeup as a loving celebration of yourself!

Briana - Exactly!

Kim - It’s not compensating, it’s not a weakness, it’s a magnification of a-

Briana - It’s the decorations at the party! It’s fun for me to put on makeup, to put on lashes, to put on sparkles, to have a cute purple-pink lipstick. That’s just like me nerdy now, me using watercolors, that’s me sketching a sketch, you know what I mean, it’s my artistry, I guess. But it is definitely, as I get older I have more appreciation for my own beauty. You know what’s funny, you remember that show “What not to wear”? Where they found people that would dress in very eccentric ways, or just poorly maybe to I don’t know, their standards, and they’d catch them and redo their wardrobe. I wonder how it would go over now because lots of times they grab people and people are like “But I like dressing like this!”. People they’d do- maybe someone had piercings and dreadlocks and they’d go “No no no no, that’s covering up your beauty” and I see their points, a lot of people do use other things such as makeup to hide, I won’t you know begrudge that idea but a lot of people were using it just to express themselves and the idea that something like this suggests that people need to be kind of uniformly beautiful was like “Oh that’s so strange” and I don’t think that would fly nowadays, that tv show would have a hard time.

Kim - Yeah! It’s like if you bring up tattoos. I think that body modification is beautiful.

Briana - Mmh, me too!

Kim - I know that there are people who are actively repelled by it. And it’s not a- not a reaction they can control. When people see my tattoos or sometimes even my piercings they go “AAAAH! AAAAH! Why would you do that to yourself?” and so having to define what pretty means to me versus defining expressing myself because I happen to think my tattoos are pretty.

Briana - They make me feel more attractive.

Kim - Yeah!!

Briana - And it’s fun, same as makeup, right? I had a similar experience when I got my septum pierced. And I got my septum pierced because I too since starting to do the conventions, I found myself getting photographed a lot and seeing myself a lot I started to become bored with my face and I was like well okay, there’s only so much makeup, I can’t colour my hair even though I did colour it pink but that’s a wash out, I can’t really cut it, I always wanted to change the way I look so I got a piercing knowing that the septum piercing was easy to hide and that it didn’t leave noticeable holes should I take it out and I got the strangest reactions, mostly from men. Even my friends, even my men friends who are really good friends of mine, who I won’t mention now but who Kim knows.

Kim - (laughs)

Briana - They were like “Uh, so what’s that about?” and my husband liked it, you know he’s into that kind of stuff, that was really the only man that I worried about when I got it and yeah, a lot of people wanted to talk about it.

Kim - Yeah, so. Is it my right to define people as attractive? Is that ultimately insulting to say “You’re so pretty”?

Briana - Well, I guess the change for that would be “I think you’re so pretty”

Kim - Oooooh. OOoh. Yes! Yes yes yes, a gazillion thank you for helping me with that!

Briana - Beauty is very subjective right? And also insecurities are very personal and I don’t have the opportunity to delve into what happened to you to make you feel unpretty. I think beauty is subjective and so I try to, the same way I approach conflict, from I speak, a place of myself, my experience of this is so instead of saying “You’re so pretty” is similar to saying “You did this to me” because people get defensive or get uncomfortable when I’m talking about beauty, they get uncomfortable.

Kim - Yes! And just by saying “You’re so pretty” I am implying that my judgment should have an impact on you, though in this case I would like to have a positive impact but as I move through this world, what I’m trying to do more and more is to encourage people to define themselves. Well, I’m kind of sending a mix message if I’m defining them, even if I’m defining them as something they wanna be, it still shouldn’t be my job to say “you’re pretty” so that helps me out a lot and I’m gonna change that immediately.

Briana - Also takes the spotlight off of them. If you say “I think you’re very pretty, I love your dress, I love your lipstick” it might take the spotlight onto you again.

Kim - I come in to this with all patterns. I come into this with as much as I want people to define themselves, I was trained that my job is to define other people for them. So if I am a good and loving person, I will define you in a way that makes you feel good about yourself. And I do that to myself when I look in a mirror. Yesterday, when I saw you? Thursday, when I saw you? I was like “You’re wasting away, there’s nothing left of you!” and you said “I have not weighed myself in-’ when you said it was the last time you were on a scale?

Briana - Oh god, I don’t know. A year? A year and a half?

Kim - That’s amazing, what a fucking gift.

Briana - Yeah. And it wasn’t a decision, I didn’t go “I can’t do this anymore, I’m not gonna weigh myself anymore”, I was just like “Aaaah, I don’t feel like it., I’m busy” and then I just stopped being interested in it. Like, I’m not afraid, I have no problem with the scale, I’m just- it doesn’t matter! I can tell when I feel like shit and if I feel like shit I probably have loosened up and the less I think about it, the better my body looks.

Kim - Ahhh, teach me your ways!! One of my best friends in the world, Scott once, many years ago left with my scale and I was like “What are you doing?” and he goes “I’m leaving with your scale” and I said “I can buy another one” and no shit he looked right at me and said “Well make the next one small because it’s going up your ass”.

Briana - Oooohhh well done!!

Kim - I am still-

Briana - Scale-aholic?

Kim - Not full scale-aholic but aware of “I’m gonna go on this and it’s gonna make me feel bad or good” as opposed to “I’m gonna go on this and it’s gonna be a reflection of my health or my wellbeing”. It is full-on “I’m gonna get on that and a number will tell me if I’m pretty or not”

Briana - Because you know what’s funny about scales, unless you do have a weight problem, which I have had a weight problem, a scale is just unnecessary information.

Kim - It’s completely unnecessary!! And also so arbitrary! Again, this is an area-

Briana - Yeah! I can gain 5 pounds in 2 hours on a scale.

Kim - Oh yeah!

Briana - Easily.

Kim - And then I start the games of “Did I poop yet”.

Briana - Yeah! “What time did I weigh myself?”

Kim - How much water is in my system?

Briana - “Did I eat before going to bed?”

Kim - “How much-”

Briana - None of that matters in life, right?

Kim - Oh man, that is still an area that matters to me.

Briana - I’m not saying that weight doesn’t matter in terms of health, like there is a healthy BMI and certainly I do think I want to perpetuate the idea of- I have health goals, I don’t have weight goals, I don’t have body goals, and I can tell when I feel better and I know when I feel better I look better and when I look better I’m mentally better and more confident so life is just better.

Kim - You know what? I’m gonna move my scale when I get home.

Briana - I still have it, it’s just collecting dust, I never even look at it, But I do things for my body, it’s not like I completely- I liked when you told me that I looked fit, you know what I mean, I am conscious of my body, but I just think a scale is useless information.

Kim - I’m also very careful to not say “You look great, you’ve lost weight!”

Briana - I think you can when you know the person, I think you can effectively make them feel better by commenting on their body but you really need to know them.

Kim - But you need to KNOW them!

Briana - Yes, yes.

Kim - It’s a goal or there’s a few people that in the fandom, I’ve seen evolve healthier and happier and growing into the- and I’m proud of them not because “Oh you got skinny and now your clothes are too stereotypical ideal” but you feel good and the light in their eyes come on and that to me is beautiful!

Briana - And that is, again back to the scales, there’s nothing, there’s no number, like- When I first started losing weight when I was in my 20s, and I just felt like I was coming into myself, I remember going away, I was in between years in college and going back to my parents’ place for the summer and then coming back to the city for college and people were like “Woah” because I lost like 30 pounds or something that summer and I just acted differently and people were commenting on it like “I like this new Briana!” and I just instantly kind of felt like I became the woman I always knew I was supposed to be which is very similar to the woman I am now, but I think that that happens if you do loose weight for the right reason.

Kim - So here is- here is another area of beauty, as losing weight for the right reason, I do botox! I have shit shoved in my face. I like not having eyebrow lines that are so deep that small children fall into them.

(Both laugh)

Kim - But knowing whether I’m doing things to my face to ascribe to a societal ideal, because so far I feel pretty confident that the things I’ve done to my face I’ve done to make me happy, especially when nobody else notices?

Briana - Exactly, yeah!

Kim - I’m like, I notice it and I’m super happy.

Briana - That’s the key, man!

Kim - You know, it occurs to me also that as I’ve had prospective changes I get older here, maybe my prospective will continue to change as I get older and wiser and my friend Briana suggest I not stand on a scale for four times a day.

Briana - Yes!! YES!! I can get behind- I respect that you do things to your face, I would never- that’s your body, but I will encourage you to not look at that number because you are a very fit woman who does not need to worry about her weight, it’s never going to be a concern to anybody but you.

Kim - I like that.

Briana - I’m not gonna sit here and tell you you should feel a certain way about yourself, that’s an inside job and it’s not my job. My job is to be a reflection of the lack of importance to that in all of the people that love you.

Kim - Uhm. Wow.

Briana - Well I guess I learned something about you today!!

Kim - I learned something about you and I already knew I love you!

Briana - I love you too!!

Kim - Thank you Briana Buckmaster!

Briana - Thank you Kim Rhodes!