This morning I decided to send in a little submission to a zine. It is based on body image and I thought that everyone has a little something to contribute to that discussion. Yesterday I had a very animated discussion about an Axe commercial based on a post on the feministing blog.
We talked about societal perceptions of body image. The thing that I think is interesting is how much I missed within myself. I know about what marketing and society does to women but does that help me actually avoid the pitfalls of the brainwashing?

A few years ago my cousin told me that I was anorexic. I was sooooooooo insulted. (By the way I am sorry to bring this up again Moo but I thought it was important). We were talking about it recently and I asked him why he said it. He told me that I wouldn't eat, that I constantly talked about my weight and I was completely obsessive. Here is the definition:
anorexia
noun
a prolonged disorder of eating due to loss of appetite

I was anorexic and I didn't even notice it. You know for all of my so called self awareness I really was in the closet about a lot of things...which is another story for another time. For now I would like to thank my cousin for helping me see the things I didn't want to....Ohhh and here is my submission:


A few years ago I got very depressed and stopped eating. I unintentionally lost 20 pounds in two weeks. When people saw me they were all amazed. I looked so wonderful, amazing, beautiful, confident, sexy, happy, healthy, etc. All this really only meant that I looked thinner. I didn’t think I was fat before. After that I felt compulsive about not gaining weight. I felt that it was really strange that my body image issues came from losing weight instead gaining it and that compliments fed it. Since then I have gained 40 pounds and become a radical feminist. My mind understands this and sees the magic in my curves and is proud. There is a little demon though, I call her StandardX, who lives in my thoughts and constantly tells me how much nicer it would be to wear those clothes again.

I know I owe the blog about a million posts about Michigan. They are coming up...very soon. I just need to get something off of my chest. I found a wonderful feministy blog yesterday thanks to my library superfriend. It was referencing whether your should address the a**holes who think they have perfect reason to challenge your feminism because they are men and they know better than you...of course....poor little girl.

Twisty talked about the lack of necessity for engaging....in a much more elaborate way then I could right now. I agreed. Then today I did it....I didn't say all the things I wanted to say...and I felt horrible. I was telling someone I work with that I plan to change my major to Women's Studies. He replied, "I study women." Big sigh. I called him trite and typical. He tried to explain to me that it was true because he did marriage counseling. I guess this implies that marriages are all in trouble because of women. I asked well who do you read...He said, "myself" Another sigh. He was getting defensive and said that he read about counseling in self help books. (Yes this is really professional and academic) He thinks one of them was written by a woman but he can't remember her name.

I am still angry about it. I called him on it but not as much as I wanted to. I have mentally come up with a list of dozens of ways that one little phrase is wrong. "I study women" I should have said that I study sexist jerks and we should make an appointment to talk some time.

We are back from the wonderful experience in Michigan. I thought about how I was going to feel down about leaving my hippy happy world behind for the world of schedules and conformity. I got to the thinking however that what I want to do is incorporate me into my life. There are many things I can do and as you can imagine, instead of sleeping I come up with a million ideas every night of how to do this. I don't know how many of them will work but I will try very hard to do as many of them as I can. I have always thought that if I set out to do ten things I will do one....but if I set out to do a hundred things I will do do ten....So I am setting out to do a thousand things. :)

The first thing on my agenda is to turn the T.V. off. It has become so extremely obvious to me that it is the thing that is sucking the most creativity and productivity out of my life. I put a sign on it that says.."This is not poetry" which I think is poetic. Speaking of poetry I wrote one last night and I am debating about where I should put it....Any suggestions?

More on Michigan soon....

I really need to start maintaining this blog. My latest news is that I didn't get a position I applied for. Strangely enough I felt relieved when I was told. I learned so much from the process but I feel that right now I am doing well where I am. I am very excited about doing 2.0 stuff (hence the need to really start doing this blog religiously. I am happy. I feel like I went on a learning journey and succeeded and I don't have to change my blog name.... jejeje :) I will have another update soon....really....I will.