August 13 - Balance

I feel like I'm living a balancing act at the moment, even moreso than I generally am.

There are tears always at the ready, but I'm not always in a physical space where it is okay to set them free.
I have a lot of packing up to do, but still a lot of time in which I will need to use my things.
I have a lot of arrangements to make, a lot of contacts have been made, but things have not been finalized.
There are a lot of people wanting my time, yet I feel selfish in wanting time alone to process everything.
I have a million plans to make, but I feel unable to make any plans right now.
There is a lot that has been thrown away or purged already, yet I still feel like I have too much.
I feel like I have too much, but I'm still having problems parting with some things.

I know that these are silly things to complain about - too many people love me and want to see me before I leave! How awful! - and I feel silly complaining. But I'm at that point where my life is in limbo, sitting on that really uncomfortable place you have to live right before you jump off and follow your dreams. There are things I wanted to do this summer that I haven't done. There are choices I have made that I know I have made in the best interest of my future that wake me up in the middle of the night in a panicked sweat. There are offers of assistance dangling out in the wind that I want to take advantage of but don't quite know how.

And all of this manifests in me living with tears always just behind my eyelids. A snarky comment for everyone. A brush-off for those who don't deserve it.

I apologize to those to whom I have been less than courteous lately. I'm sorry to my friends who's events I have missed recently in favor of staying home and crying while I pack. I'm sorry I don't have better words with which to describe the gratitude I feel toward all of those who are being so helpful and gracious and generous and supportive of this new life direction for me. It's a balancing act, and I promise I'll get better at it.

In September.

October 1 - Shame

I am embarrassed by my government today.

I was talking to a fellow classmate last night as we were working on building our relationship's back story for a class exercise and he asked if we needed to discuss politics. I told him I like politics best when I don't have to think about them. Today, I have to think about politics because the Temper Tantrum Party has decided the way they can best serve the interests of their constituents is to shut down part of the government. They will still receive their paychecks, of course, because it is important work they are (not) doing up there on Capitol Hill, and god forbid, they should actually stand with the people they claim to represent, the people told to take furlough days while Republicans stand with fingers in their ears shouting, "La la la, I can't hear you," at the Democrats.

Now, there are those who would argue that the Democrats should back down and allow funding for Obamacare to be delayed. I wonder how the millions of people who plan on going online today and signing up for health coverage they were previously unable to obtain feel about that. My guess is that Democrats who stand in favor of funding Obamacare as it was passed are taking that into consideration. I wonder how Republicans will react when they see exactly how many people in this country are in need of affordable health care and how many want to take advantage of the program. Will they still insist on delaying funding for the program, effectively saying, "Fuck you" to everyone who signed up for it?

I think what makes this even sadder is that there is another impending debt ceiling vote coming up, which is one of those silly things Congress imposed upon itself so it can have leverage in situations like this. Which means someone has to do something in the next two weeks to get the government running again or our credit rating could take another hit like it did earlier this year.

So, coming from someone who doesn't pay all that much attention to politics, who gets most of her news from the BBC, and who doesn't like having to think about this stuff, this is what I see:

• Obamacare has the potential to help a lot of people.
• Republicans are still pissed that an African American Democrat got elected fair and square to a first and then a second term.
• To this end, Republicans are dead-set on sabotaging his presidency.
• Republicans have decided that Obamacare needs to go away and are using lots of various unfounded fear tactics to get the American public to turn against it.
• In the ultimate game of Chicken, Republicans are now holding the American government hostage, costing millions of taxpayers millions of dollars in lost income, and threatening to lower the United States credit rating yet again rather than allow funding for a health care program that will not really affect people who already have insurance, but will open the door of opportunity to people who have not been able to get proper insurance in the past.

I'm sure I'm missing something in the details there, but at this point, I kind of don't care. I'm ashamed that the Republican party would hold healthcare for millions hostage because they're not getting their way. Because the idiotic candidates they've put up in the past couple of elections didn't pass muster. You know when the last time the government went into a partial shut-down was? Seventeen years ago when Republicans didn't like Clinton's budget.

Republicans: stop shutting down the government. This is not an appropriate negotiation technique among grown adults. Get your fingers out of your ears, put on your big boy pants, go in to work, and discuss things like civilized human beings who are elected public servants. Shutting down the government does nobody any good. Shutting down the government in the name of stopping health care reform does nobody any good. You are only succeeding at making yourselves look incompetent and idiotic to the rest of the world. Grow up and do your job.

Happy October, everybody.

September 12 - Coming of Age

I've been thinking a lot lately about the slew of young female pop stars or actors who "come of age" by turning into hot messes. I've been thinking about them much more than I would like to, but I do have a question and I'm not sure what the answer is, so I'm going to chat about it for a bit today to try to see if anything gels.

I think it is important to note, too, that young male stars sometimes come of age by turning into hot messes, but not nearly with the frequency that young female stars do (at least not anymore). There are the classic examples of Danny Bonaduce and Todd Bridges who grew out of their "cute boy" phases and got into drugs and got into trouble with the law and whatnot. I would argue that their shenanigans didn't hold a candle to Lindsay Lohan's or Miley Cyrus' or Amanda Bynes'. And when we look at young male actors now who find a way to come of age in Hollywood, showing their maturity often times involves wearing nice suits to premieres, or taking more dramatic roles in films. I will just throw out the names Joseph Gordon Leavitt, Zac Efron, Justin Timberlake, and Daniel Radcliffe. All of these men have grown up in the Hollywood system fairly recently and while yes, Daniel Radcliffe has now done nudity on stage and on film, all of these men have somehow managed to keep it together. Justin Timberlake is probably the one focusing the most on sex in his career (he is the one who brought it back, you know), but watching his videos and listening to his music (which, admittedly, I don't do very much as it is not to my taste), it appears that his image of what is sexy for a man is a more classic styling. Three piece suits. Suave appearance. He's not running around in a Speedo trying to be sexy.

However, when young women in Hollywood feel the need to grow up, come of age, find themselves, or make a break with the young, sweet image of their youth, they do so by eschewing clothing, taste, manners and sensibility. There is the occasional notable exception like Emma Watson who parted with her Hermione image by cutting her hair, but the vast majority of young starlets think that the way to "grow up" is to wear less clothing and behave like idiots. Lindsay Lohan. Amanda Bynes. Miley Cyrus. Brittney Spears. They embrace the idea that sex appeal equals maturity and naked equals sexy. Why is that?

I think a perfect example of this is the video for "Blurred Lines." Whether you are watching the version wherein the women are nude or the version wherein the women are wearing skimpy undergarments, the basic image is the same. Here are a bunch of men expressing their individual styles, all looking sexy in suits and sunglasses and whatnot, and here are a bunch of women who are completely interchangeable, all looking sexy because they are naked. I don't know the lyrics for the song, nor do I want to. I was so beyond offended when I saw the semi-clothed version of the video that now I quickly change the radio station whenever the song threatens to come on. I want nothing to do with the song, the message, or the image associated therewith.

Scratch that - I'm not going to talk smack about something I've never read. I just went to find the lyrics online and I can now say that having read them (or having tried to), I continue to be sickened by the existence of that song. Now I can make the fully informed decision to avoid the song at all costs.

Now, I understand that finding one's own sexuality is an important part of growing up. Children are not supposed to be sexy; adults are supposed to procreate. Somewhere in between there, you have to figure out how. Not to mention the role that sexual intimacy plays in our relationships, whether or not there is procreation involved. So I can see how equating "growing up" with "having sex" happens. What I take issue with is how this seems to have morphed into "growing up" meaning "ready to have sex in public with anyone who might be walking by because I am turned on all of the time." One can embrace and even advertise one's sexuality without it becoming the focal point of one's entire existence. Yet with so many young Hollywood starlets, that is the way it goes.

There are a lot of "coming of age" movies out there, too, about young men - high school seniors or college freshmen - who have set the goal of losing their virginity by a certain end date. When they reach that goal, they are lauded and applauded by their friends. For a long time, the women in those films (or those situations) were considered sluts. I understand (and agree with) the backlash against the idea that it is okay for men to be sexually experienced but not for women to be so. I understand embracing that idea and adopting the "I'm okay with my own sexuality and with my level of sexual experience and with my sexual appetite" attitude. What I see, though, is that our culture is still a long way away from fully accepting female sexuality. We still call those girls sluts. We still look down on them. Slut-shaming happens all of the time. All of the time. Women who are not particularly sexually promiscuous are still called sluts if they wear short skirts. It has nothing to do with her sexuality, really. It has to do with how those around her see her, and they see the short skirt or the low cut top as an invitation to touch, grope, and grab. Hell, I was riding a crowded train once wearing a knee-length skirt and the guy standing behind me started feeling up my leg and lifting my skirt's hem. I smacked his hand away and got off the train at the next stop. That had nothing to do with my sexuality, whether I am a slut or not, or what my relationship status with men was. That had everything to do with his fucked up attitude that women exist to pleasure men. If our starlets continue along the path they are currently on where twerking is the highest form of social expression, that attitude will never change.

So I understand the desire to grow up and find oneself. And I understand that it has to be difficult to do so when everything you do is so scrutinized by an unforgiving public. And I can see how public speculation regarding when a certain starlet may have lost her virginity or online countdown clocks to when a girl becomes "legal" can really mess with a girl's sense of self-worth. Or how they might push her to just say, "Fuck it; they think I'm a slut? I'll show them how slutty I can be." It still makes me sad how many young women go this route.

See, for me (and I know I'm the odd one here), I know now and have known for a long time that my brain is my most attractive feature. The few men I have dated have been attracted to me for the conversations we have and the various artistic talents I possess as much as, if not more than, they have been attracted to me physically. Because another way to separate oneself as an adult from oneself as a child is by gaining knowledge, wisdom, poise, and experience. Take Emma Thompson, Helen Mirren, or Cate Blanchett, for example. They each have more sex appeal in a wisp of hair than Lohan, Bynes, and Cyrus combined. They are intelligent, wise, humorous, poised, and talented. These qualities are what make them sexy and attractive, whether they dye their hair pink, choose to wear acrylic stripper heels, or not.

Can we find a way to teach our daughters that? Can we teach our daughters that intelligence and compassion and humor are sexy? Yes, the onus goes on our sons, too, to know that women do not exist solely for their pleasure and that when a girl says no, she means no, and that women are to be respected and treated as equals, regardless of whether or not looking in the general direction of her genitalia makes you feel all tingly. But I think as long as we have generations of starlets being told by their managers and agents and associated yes-men that they won't be taken seriously unless they're willing to bare it all (literally), young girls looking up to those starlets are going to grow up believing that in order to grow up, they have to get naked.

I don't want my nieces to grow up that way. I don't want my nieces to feel that kind of pressure to look a certain way or behave a certain way in order to prove that they are grown up. I want them to know that they are amazing young women (or will be - the oldest is currently four, so even in my pseudo-feminist world, she's a little young to be called a woman) who are valued for their hearts, minds, and souls as well as their bodies. I want my nieces to be able to come of age without becoming hot messes. Is that really so much to ask?

August 12 - Mondays

I will admit that I am angry and bitter today. I know many of the reasons why I am angry and bitter, and I know that most of them are constructs of my own imagination. Most of them are things I can do something about, too, though one giant one is going to take a while. It's kind of stunning to me how this one bad thing can infect so much of the rest of my life until I end up walking around feeling like I am, in general, an angry and bitter person, because I'm pretty sure the opposite is true. Following days like this, where I become afraid that I am, in general, and angry and bitter person, I usually end up overcompensating and going overboard trying to prove to the people around me that I am not a bitter and angry person, that I am in fact nice and caring. My efforts often meet with little reciprocation, though, so the bitter and angry me has decided to not go that route today. I am, instead, going to allow myself to be better and angry for a bit. And then I am going to mention three things today that brought me joy.

1) I saw a rainbow.
2) I'm wearing a skirt that is so old the elastic in the waistband is completely worn out and it makes me feel like a 1990's slacker.
3) I listened to Frank Turner songs on my way home from work and his song "To Take You Home" reminded me that there are things in this life so beautiful that my face is too small for the smile they inspire. I'm okay with having this problem, though, and I will never stop trying to smile big enough to show my love.

Happy Monday, everybody.

August 6 - Corporate Dress

I am not a fashionista. I think we all know this about me already. It is amusing to me, doing VEDA again this year, to look at my videos and realize that I have been essentially wearing the same six outfits for the past three years. I am not a fashionista.

The one time that this bothers me, though, is in reference to the clothes I wear to work. I wear "business casual" clothing to work. Albeit with Converse sneakers, but it's business casual. Nice trousers, nice blouses, appropriate sweaters, the occasional skirt or dress. I look...corporate. With sneakers. Not everyone in the downtown area has to look corporate, though, and when I walk around the corner to grab a sandwich for lunch, for example, I see guys walking around in jeans and Batman t-shirts and I become insanely jealous. My inner geek wants the ability to rip of my corporate exterior like Superman to reveal the Doctor Who t-shirt I wish I was wearing, so I could be easily identified on the street as a geek and a sci-fi fan. Then maybe they would smile and say, "Cool shirt," and we would know that a bond had been formed between two strangers with similar interests and we would go our separate ways feeling like we belong somewhere in the universe.

Instead, they see a girl in black trousers and a sweater set, carrying a sandwich and don't think twice about her. There is no bond, no belonging, no smile.

I hope that someday, corporate America starts listening to the studies that show that employees who get to wear what they want to work are more productive than those who have to follow some dress code. And that workers are more productive when given more individual freedoms, and that employees are more productive when they feel valued. So maybe someday, when I pop around the corner to get a sandwich, I can do so with my geek flag flying loud and proud for all my fellow geeks to see.

July 3 - Problem (Not Really)

I love that I am a creative person. It is largely how I define myself. I think of myself as an artist and a creator, rather than a consumer or destroyer. And truth be told, I am a terrible consumer - I can always think of a reason to not buy something. As I type this, I'm wearing a little black cardigan that is probably five years old and is so worn I have had to fix the sleeve seams two or three times, sew buttons back on it, and the cuffs are now so frayed and stretched out that I can't really push up the sleeves anymore. But I still wear the cardigan because it still functions as a cardigan and I've not been bothered to go buy a new one. Like I said, I'm a terrible consumer. (Unless it is TARDIS themed merchandise, as I seem to have an abundance of that - TARDIS watch, TARDIS notebook, two TARDIS lunchboxes that came with coasters and TARDIS travel mugs, TARDIS teapot (a gift, but still), TARDIS phone case, TARDIS bobblehead, two TARDIS t-shirts - seriously, what is wrong with me?)

But back to the point. I am the creative sort. I like making things, I like having ideas, I like working on projects. And I often find that the more projects I'm working on, the more ideas I get for other projects I should be working on. Granted, not all of them are good ideas and I don't always see all of them through, but it's like creativity begets creativity. The more I'm working, the more I want to work.

Which, of course, means now that Hamlet is in the middle of shooting, I'm being bombarded with ideas. I'm playing my guitar again, I'm auditioning again, and I had one idea this morning that is probably so crazy crack-pot too big for me to handle on my own that it might just be brilliant. My mind is abuzz with plans and thoughts and ideas and people I would want to approach to collaborate and things I'll have to do to sort out the legality of some issues and whatnot and the more I think about it, the more I think it could be really fun.

But, of course, I have to spend about nine hours a day at my day job. Where I don't get to plan and investigate and collaborate on these amazing creative ideas that I have. I have to do the things that I have to do to make money so I can live and have an apartment and eat food while I have all of these lovely creative ideas. Sigh.

Such is the curse of the creative person - trying to find balance between creation and survival. I will admit that maybe my balance is a little too skewed toward survival every now and again. I hope that someday, having to choose between the two and having to schedule time in which to be creative is not such a challenge. I hope someday I just get to create.

June 11 - Dietary Issues

This is not going to be a blog about losing weight, so if that is what you are looking for, look elsewhere. Sorry.

What I do want to talk a little bit about is the trend within the United States to tout the health benefits of one particular food item for five or six years, and then debunk everything good that was said about that product for five or six years, and then add that food item back to the "it's okay to eat in moderation" food list. Honestly, I think they're all just messing with us, trying to make bigger profits on food products by coming up with new food items and then convincing the general public that all of the old food products are going to kill you so you better eat this new stuff instead.

I bring this up today because a lot of the foods I rely on to keep me healthy have come under attack lately - soy and wheat, mostly - and this bothers me. I sort of feel like I'm sure much of the world did when we were all told to avoid eggs fifteen years ago, and I am anxiously awaiting the day when either some reasonable research comes out or we get off of this "everything is bad for you for five years and then it's okay to eat again" roller coaster.

See, the thing is this - data can be interpreted in really whatever way you want to interpret it in order to support whatever hypothesis you come up with. In the simplest terms, you may have crammed all night for a big biology exam and you got an 85% which makes you proud, but your parents only focus on the 15% of the test you got wrong and ground you. Same result, different interpretations. Or, let's say two groups of scientists perform the same study under the same conditions to determine whether or not smoking is bad for you. The one group zeros in on the calming effect of nicotine, the appetite control, the lowered risk for Parkinson's disease. The other group zeros in on the prevalence of lung cancer and emphysema caused by smoking. Both publish papers on their findings. Both papers will really only talk about the things they want to highlight so it doesn't look like they spent ten years disproving their own hypotheses. No scientist wants to prove himself wrong - he'll lose funding, he'll lose respect within the community, and he'll likely lose his job. On the rare occasion, proving oneself wrong produces another, greater result that then heralds one as a genius instead of a failure (William Perkin inventing synthetic dyes instead of a malaria cure, for example), but I think most scientists would rather spend their time proving themselves right than hoping for a miracle.

So here is what I know about human biology as it relates to food:

• We need certain amounts of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins and minerals to support our basic body functions. 
• Some of these things are synthesized naturally in the body.
• What is not naturally synthesized, we get from food - the things we eat and drink are absorbed into our bodies and affect the way we function.
• Whatever we ingest that our bodies can't use is expelled as solid or liquid waste.

Based on this list, maintaining one's health by eating the right foods should not be rocket surgery. Eat things that contain the right amounts of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins and minerals and you should be all good, yes?

I say yes.

I think where the confusion comes from is that the right amounts of the right things are not easily defined across the board. In the simplest terms, a 250-lb man has different dietary requirements than a three-year-old girl. There is more of him, he has different musculature, he has different hormonal balances to maintain, and he (hopefully) isn't still trying to grow at the rate a three-year-old is. And this isn't even taking into account conditions like diabetes or lifestyle choices like extreme athleticism that will change your nutritional requirements even more. But the problem in America is that we want to find the one right answer to "how and what should I eat?" that will work for everyone. We recognize so many other differences in ourselves; why don't we recognize and honor the differences in our dietary requirements?

The one that is really amusing to me now is the gluten-free trend. Now, I'm not trying to make fun of those who have Celiac disease - this is a real autoimmune disease wherein an autoimmune response is triggered in the small intestine when gluten is ingested, and it causes bloating, fatigue, weight loss, and malnourishment. I know people who have been positively diagnosed with Celiac disease and to them, I say, "Follow your gluten-free diet." For their sake, I am glad that companies like Udi's exist. But current estimates say that only about 1% of the population in the United States actually has Celiac disease. Now, there are also those out there with a gluten sensitivity, for whom eating gluten can cause bloating or discomfort, but they do not have the autoimmune disease. If those people also choose to avoid gluten, more power to them. Even if that brings the total percentage of the United States population who have some sort of problem with gluten to 10%, that's 90% of the population that doesn't have a problem with gluten. So why are we telling everyone to avoid gluten like it is the plague?

I know, I know, it is because wheat is so processed now and natural wheat plants today are different than they were 1,000 years ago and so on and so forth. You know what? Humans are different today than we were 1,000 years ago. So there.

"Well what about GMOs?" you might ask. Recently (i.e. within the last year or so), one of the biggest crusaders against GMOs gave a talk saying he was wrong all along - that the science to prove the harmful nature of GMOs isn't really there. I'm sure there are those who would say he was coerced into changing his position or whatever, but it does make you wonder. Did he spend the last twenty years only reading studies that supported his theories, and then recently found other studies that opposed his theories? If you can prove anything you want by looking at the results of scientific study through various colored glasses, was his flip a matter of coercion, or changing his glasses?

The simple answer is, "I don't know." I am not a researcher, I am not Mark Lynas, I am not a person suffering from a gluten sensitivity. I am a person who has been living and thriving on a plant-based diet that has included a lot of soy and wheat for almost eleven years. I have just the right balance of good and bad cholesterol in my system. I sometimes get tired when I eat sugary things. I sometimes get gassy when I eat too many beans. But I think it is clear from my outward appearance - my curvy nature, my strong fingernails and hair, my glowing complexion - that I am well-nourished. So I apologize if I am not going to jump on the "say no to soy" bandwagon, the "everything gluten free" bandwagon, or the "drink a glass of wine every day" bandwagon. I am going to eat the foods that make me feel good. I am going to eat the foods that my body tells me it needs, because if I have learned one thing from being vegan, it is that my body knows better than I do what it needs to function properly and it will tell me when something is lacking. And I am also going to allow myself to not be perfect in this regard - I will eat cake every now and again knowing exactly how crappy I will feel afterward.

And my advice to you on your diet? Eat the foods you like. The ones that make your body sing out, "Thank you!" after you have consumed them. The ones that have the carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins and minerals that support your unique body chemistry. Because you are unique, and you embrace that uniqueness in every other aspect of your life. Embrace it in your dietary choices as well.

Or not. I'm not an expert, so you're free to tell me to go piss up a tree.

May 16 - The Powder Room

I think most bathroom designers must be men. What else could explain the extremely inconvenient placement of so many toilet paper roll holders? It's not that big of a deal for most men - they only use toilet paper once or twice a day when using the toilet, so if they have to twist and contort to reach it, no biggie. Women use toilet paper every time they use the toilet. Which often times occurs with greater frequency than men using the toilet. So to have to sit down and turn around almost 180 degrees to reach the precious loo roll, well, it's not my favorite.

So ladies, let's get a few more of us into architecture and interior design so we can stop this plague of inconveniently placed toilet paper roll holders in bathrooms. Awareness is the first step to prevention. Doing something about it is the second.

May 5 - Non-Issue

I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish physical appearance was a non-issue. Specifically mine.

I would like to think that in my life and my interactions with other people, a lot of the things that were once, I dunno, taboo? are now non-issues. I don't really care what your sexual orientation is or your religion or your skin color or your gender, if you are a kind person, we're going to get along just fine. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my friend's sexual orientations because frankly, it doesn't matter to me who they choose to sleep with and who they want to spend their lives with. I don't care who my friends pray to, or if they choose not to pray at all. And I don't mean that to sound crass or dismissive or uncaring - I know that for a lot of people, these things are integral parts of their identities and these things are important to them. What is important to me in human interaction is communication and respect and kindness. If those things are taken care of, the rest of it is just the sprinkles on top of the sundae.

But somehow, I still find myself totally hung up on my own physical appearance. I realize that this blog is probably coming off very vain and self-centered, but apparently, I have some issues to work out at the moment. I'm sorry about that. But at the same time, maybe somebody else is having issues, too, and my talking about it might be useful to them.

I'm tired of having to think about what I look like, and what my clothes say about me, and how I'm being judged as I walk down the street for...whatever. For my pants being too lose or too tight. For my tattoo showing or not. For my preference for dark colors. I'm tired of it. I'm so freaking tired of it.

Side note for all the geeks out there: I tried to type "freaking" just now, but what showed up on the screen was "fraking," which I almost kept.

I tried to buy clothing today. I went to a bunch of stores I never go to and I went to one store I always go to and by the time everything was said and done, I walked out with pieces I think might work but I'm not really crazy about and an overwhelming need to go have a cry. Wait, let me back up a minute.

I read this blog post last week and fell in love with the author just a little bit. I think it is partially because I read that post that when I had to shoot myself in a video for work, I didn't cringe at the footage and pick it apart in my head, saying I should have worn different jeans or styled my hair differently or anything. I actually looked at that footage and thought to myself, "Hey, I'm actually pretty cute." It was a strange moment for me, but one that I felt meant I was making progress. And today, in rehearsal, I was standing on a platform on the stage and the guy understudying the lead was standing on the floor and he came over and picked me up in a fireman's carry. And I let him. I didn't grunt or groan or struggle or shriek, I let him pick me up over his shoulder and set me down elsewhere. He didn't break a bone or pull a muscle or anything. He just picked me up and set me down. So I was feeling good about myself. Comfortable. Somewhere along the way, I also decided that I don't like using the word "fat" to describe myself because I am not fat. I am not a size two, but I am also not morbidly obese. So I want to stop using the word fat to describe myself, even if it's in the context of a comment that never leaves my own head.

But then I went shopping. I needed a bathing suit, and something fancy and white. Honestly, trying to find a white outfit was more depressing than finding a bathing suit. I went to five or six stores, stores aimed at teens and twenty-somethings, stores aimed at the whole family, stores aimed at 30+. And in every single store, I had to grab just about the largest size on the rack. In some cases, those sizes were still too small. The pieces that did fit were not designed with a curvy girl in mind - the hem landed in the least flattering spot, or the waistband bulged in the back, or whatever. These clothes were designed for women with a very specific set of measurements - measurements I'm pretty sure most women don't have. Hell, even some of the sales people would obviously not fit into the clothes they were selling. One woman greeted me and it occurred to me after the fact that if I was buying the extra large bathing suit bottom, she wouldn't even be able to shop in the store where she worked. This poor girl probably never gets to take advantage of her employee store discount because none of the clothes they carry allow women to be any larger than a size 8 or 10. How fucked up is that? Seriously.

Now, I'm not advocating obesity. I'm not saying people with potentially life threatening medical conditions shouldn't seek help. But it has also been shown that overweight does not always mean unhealthy. Often times, yes, it does. But not always. And even for the overweight people who are unhealthy - they have to be able to wear clothes, too, right? Wouldn't it be nice if they could wear clothes that were comfortable and flattering?

The kicker for me in all of this is that I am not fat. I am not unhealthy. I am not a size four. And I can barely find an outfit in an entire mall full of women's clothing stores that is comfortable and flattering.

I know the fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that provides jobs for thousands of people and a creative artistic outlet for a select few. But I wish it was a non-issue. I wish physical appearance was a non-issue. It shouldn't matter if I'm wearing this season's jeans or last season's jeans, and to many people it doesn't, but there are still enough people out there to whom it does matter that one afternoon spent in a mall can completely destroy the self-esteem of a woman like me. A member of Mensa. A musician. A brilliant actress. A kind and loving friend, sister, and daughter. And I can't be the only one who feels this frustration. I can't be. Which would seem to indicate that the issue is not that there is something wrong with me or the way I look or how I am built, but that there is something wrong with the clothing designers and the general belief that women shouldn't have breasts and hips because they are too hard to design around. Fuck that. Breasts and hips are amazing. My badonkadonk ass is glorious and deserves a pair of trousers that do it justice.

Or, the simpler answer, is to make physical appearance a non-issue. I don't care what you look like, or what you're wearing, or whether you have "gym hair" today or what. Let's just agree that we're both human beings and see where the conversation goes from there, shall we?

Please?

May 1 - Question

Why do we, as a culture, insist on eating grains with forks? Rice, quinoa, couscous, even small pastas like orzo, we insist on eating them with a fork. The least small-item-friendly utensil in the general American utensil set. Granted, there are other cultures that like to eat these things with chopsticks, which are even less small-item-friendly, and I myself enjoy using chopsticks whenever I can (especially my light saber chopsticks that I got at Comic Con), but really, this makes no sense. We are so addicted to eating things with forks in the United States that often times, spoons are not even included with the set of silverware laid out at the restaurant table. If your server deems your order worthy of a spoon (i.e. soup), then he or she will bring one when he or she brings the food. Otherwise, no spoon for you! You must eat these tiny grains of rice by stabbing them with the tine of a fork!

I recently decided that I was going to eat small grains with a spoon instead of a fork. It makes me feel like I am three years old, but it is a lot less messy and much more efficient. I don't have to stick my face in the bowl and scoop the remaining grains in like one of those arcade machines where you try to get the arm to push quarters over the edge. I can eat my food like a grown-up. Who uses a spoon to eat small grains.

And suddenly, there is ukulele music in the background which has completely distracted me from my forks vs. spoons rant. Now I feel tropical.

Yay nice weather! Happy May, everybody! And hooray for eating small food items with a spoon!

April 2 - Spring

Spring is a really weird time of year for me. I love that the world starts waking up again, things turn green, the weather gets warmer, blah, blah, blah, but there are a lot of really odd and/or negative emotions that come with springtime, too. Even when it's not Springtime for Hitler. And Germany.

I love that the weather is getting milder. But I think we have all figured out by now that I hate being cold more than just about anything. Living in an apartment in Chicago, I do not have control over the heat in my apartment - I am at the whims of the radiator system that has been set up in my building. If the temperature outside is below 55 degrees Fahrenheit (about 13 Celsius for our friends across the pond), the heat comes on. If it is above 55, the heat does not come on. Sounds simple, right? Except when the outdoor temperature hovers between 55-60 during the day and at night, which it often does for a week or so at a time in Chicago during the spring. Then the heat doesn't come on at all for a week or so at a time, but the outdoor air temperature isn't quite high enough to heat the apartment on it's own, so it just gets cold inside. I know I should love spring with the increased sunshine and lovely, mild temperatures, but I always wind up colder than I'd like to be. I'd be fine with fast forwarding to summer.

I love that there is more to do in the city in the spring and summer. But I often find myself wishing I had a special someone to go do those things with. Until I remember, I'm rubbish in romantic relationships. I honestly am. Now, this is not to say I couldn't make a good girlfriend - I think I have shown glimmers of being a good girlfriend in the past (for the twenty minutes of my life I've had a boyfriend). I always find myself in a position, though, of having to balance boyfriend with the rest of my life - theater, various training exercises (roller skating, fencing, etc.), family, friends, work, my general introvertedness - and boyfriend always ends up losing. I keep thinking that when I meet the right guy, I'll want to give up some of my introvertedness to be with him, but maybe that's an incorrect assumption. Maybe I'll need to make a conscious choice to give that up for him. And honestly, that thought freaks me out. I treasure my alone time. Treasure it. I stay sane by not interacting with other humans for a couple hours every day. So I find myself in that really odd position of wanting someone around I can smooch from time to time and knowing that if I had someone like that, I'd be miserable.

Springtime also excites me because it's dress weather! I hate wearing tights and pantyhose, so I love it when I can wear a dress without the additional eight pounds of undergarments. But since I've been sitting inside most of the winter, I feel kind of gross. I'd like to show off a little leg or a little arm, but feel like perhaps I would be doing the world a favor if I kept all of that covered. This has been particularly weird lately, to the point where I don't trust mirrors. In my mind's eye, I am about a size 82 and always look greasy and tired. In the mirror, I look kind of cute and not nearly a size 82. The mind's eye thing makes it a little weird to go try to find a guy to smooch every now and again, too. So I sort of feel like I'm wearing dresses in spite of what society is telling me I should wear, instead of for the joy of being a little girly.

So hooray for baseball and warmer weather and fun things to do, but weirdness abounds as well. Meaning if I seem a little off, or do things that seem out of character, it's because it's spring and I don't know how to act otherwise. Anyway, gotta run to catch a bus. Talk to you tomorrow!

March 27 - I Just...

I have an email address that, apparently, many many many many many many many many many many many people wish they had. Sorry, kids, it's mine. I got there first. And because of the way that this particular email service works, even if you put a period or a dash or something between the words in the email address, the email still comes to me. Which means I get a lot of emails that are not intended for me.

I know, I know, you're thinking, "Those are called SPAM messages, and it's okay to delete them." I'm not talking about spam. I'm talking about people's order confirmations from All Things Edible that include home addresses, full names, itemized lists of what was ordered and what it cost, and telephone numbers. I'm talking about emails that say, "Hi, Parent. Your child has signed up to play Innocuous Learning Game Number 6 and needs your approval to set up an account." I'm talking about emails that say, "Your phone number 919-xxx-xxxx {phone number removed by me for privacy purposes} is almost at it's data limit for this billing cycle and will be charged $1.69 for every extra kilobyte of data." These are not spam messages. These are messages meant for someone who input the wrong email address when signing up for a service of some sort.

Now, recently, I switched cell phone providers because there is a certain cell phone company that I despise that I wanted to get away from. Everything was fine, I'm okay with my new provider, but then I started getting emails from my old provider in regard to an account that was not mine. I got a full name, a full address, and a couple of phone numbers - apparently, it's a family plan. I marked these emails as spam so I wouldn't have to receive them anymore. Nope. They still arrive in my inbox every month. So I tried texting the phone number associated with the account to ask them to update their email address on the account and remove mine in the process. Didn't hear anything. Got another email. Then another. Then another. I even tried calling the phone number in the email to ask them politely on the phone to update their preferences. They sent me to a voice mail box that hasn't been set up yet.

I'm at the point where I don't know what else to do. I'm trying to help this person protect their own personal information by making sure the right contact information is in their account, in addition to trying to stop being contacted by a cell phone company I hate for something that has nothing to do with me. If I was a less honest person, I could very easily get into their account and gain access to their personal, identifying, or financial information. I'm not that person. I don't want another person's identity. I don't want to screw with someone's life like that. But I would really really really like these emails to stop.

So I'm starting a spam text campaign against the offending phone number. Random facts sent with the intent of getting this person to change their email address. Things like, "All 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building would love it if you took my email address off of your phone account," and "It is physically impossible to lick your own elbow, but it is very easy to stop these texts - remove my email address from your cell phone account." Informative, and hopefully just annoying enough to get this person to wise up and use their own email address instead of mine. Because seriously, why haven't they updated their account yet?

If you have any suggestions for texts I can send to this person (I would prefer to avoid profanity and threats of violence), please share them in the comments. Thanks!

March 18 - Dichotomy

It's funny to me that when one aspect of my life starts getting really good, another starts getting really bad.

I spent almost four hours with my mom yesterday morning and it was amazing. We communicate really well, and we bounce ideas off of each other and share creative opportunities and discuss life events and all of that. If there is some cosmic lottery that matches up parents and children, it could not have come up with a better pairing than my mom and I. She is the best mother for me, and I think I'm the best daughter for her. I left her place buzzing with excitement for the next steps in my life, full of positive energy.

And then today, I got an email which could effectively extend the major frustration in my life several months longer than I thought it was going to last. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, but you know when you finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it turns out to be a flashlight lying on the ground that only shows you that you have twenty more miles of tunnel to crawl through before you can get out on the other side? This email was one of those situations. I'm kind of in shock about it and have to do some re-planning of the next steps when I get home tonight.

There is nothing that you, my dear readers, need to worry about. Everything is okay; I am not in danger. Just really really frustrated. It will all sort itself out; I know this. It's just going to take a little longer than I originally thought.

But it is funny to me that this balance (or imbalance) exists so obviously in my life. It's not a series of little good things with the occasional bad thing scattered in between, it is a really wonderful super high followed by a crushing blow. It seems to be more extreme now than it was when I was younger, or maybe I wasn't paying as much attention before, but something has changed. Something is different. It's probably that I am different and things affect me differently than they used to. I have already decided to take action to eliminate some of the major frustrations from my life, it's just the matter of getting it done while someone or something seems to be conspiring against me to keep me from getting it done. Is it time for plan C? Maybe. I'm not done yet; I'm not giving up. But I apologize in advance to the people at whom I am likely going to yell to try to get this sorted out.

Thank goodness I have the good things to balance out the bad. Thank goodness I have the good things.