beautifully comfortable

while writing song lyrics the other day, i wrote the line, "i wish i was beautiful." it just came out. it didn't rhyme with anything in the verse.. didn't even complete a thought, really - but in the context of the lyrics, made sense. there's a little bit (and sometimes a lot of bit) about me in every song i write. i find it hard to be that singer/songwriter type crooning about other people's lives, telling other people's stories, feeding off of other people's experiences. part of me feels like i have enough stories of my own to make dozens of albums. part of me feels like i need to keep other stories to myself. like this one.

my wife would interrupt me right now and tell me how beautiful i am. a beautiful girl, though. a beautiful wife. not man, not husband. not one of those guys that all the straight girls think are beautiful - with pretty eyes, soft features, shy smiles. that part of me with the quiet stories wants to be one of those beautiful guys. i would wear cargo shorts (that would ignore my feminine hips), and flip-flops, and my sunglasses (simple, but expensive) on the top of my head.. or maybe sitting on the back of my tan neck. maybe i'd have a tattoo of something tribal on the side of my hairy man-calf. i'd chew gum and drive a car with the sunroof always open, and all of the windows down on bright, warm spring afternoons like today. i'd casually scratch my 5 o'clock shadow while sitting at a stoplight in the middle of the city. i'd have guy friends who looked a bit like me and we'd meet up on weekend afternoons to play sudden games of football. i'd always have confidence in everything i do (a line in different song.) i'd even be clumsy gracefully. i'd never feel like i was having an out-of-body experience while talking to an attentive audience - fearing for what i'm actually saying, for what they're hearing, and hating the sound of my monotone, gender neutral voice - wondering how long it will take them to lose interest in what i'm saying because i've used an analogy wrong and they're caught up wondering if i really meant something else (or worse, "did she just say that?"). i want to occasionally smoke a cigarette and have people around me laugh and gasp with raised eyebrows because they didn't think i was that type of guy. i'd wink and smile and play mysterious. i'd be.. beautiful. the way i'd like to be beautiful. beautifully comfortable.

who knows if i can be beautifully comfortable as a woman. 90% of me knows that being that guy up there is next to impossible. no amount of testosterone will make me any more graceful, or prevent me from saying incorrect analogies. for now, my cargo shorts will hang too long, too big, on my too wide hips. my cheap plastic sunglasses (when i wear them, when i have my contacts in, which is 5% of my life because they're uncomfortable and make my eyes dry) will get caught in my long hair when i push them onto the top of my head. my car doesn't even have a sunroof, and my wife doesn't let me smoke - even if i could pull of the mysterious part of it. i can only do so much, it seems, and much of that feels like needing to ride out the parts of myself that i like, and learn to adapt and accept the parts of myself that feel so uncomfortable. i fear setting myself up to want something that's impossible - wanting to be this impossible beautiful guy. but it doesn't prevent me from noticing beautiful guys all the time, and hanging my head when they step into the elevator with me - knowing that they have no idea of what they naturally have, of what i'd love to naturally (or artificially) be. what's a beautiful girl to do?