Through a series of random events, I ended up looking through a box of photos as my dad's house. I found a picture of me at about seventeen or eighteen, and I stared at it for a long time. Then I held it up and said, "I can't believe how skinny I was."
"And you should be again," he answered right away, without even a pause.
"That's not the point," I told him. "I thought I was the ugliest most disgusting thing on two legs. I thought I was a whale."
Again, without a pause: "Then what do you think now?"
Ouch. Lucky for him I've developed some perspective, or he'd have had a very upset daughter on his hands. I stared at him and then rolled my eyes.
"Well, you've let yourself go to the point th--"
I cut him off. "That's not the point. The point is that my body image was so screwed up that I thought I was enormous when I wasn't."
He made a comment about that kind of thing can cause anorexia or bulimia, and I just looked at him and said "Yes, it can." He asked what that meant, so I told him I came near that. He just kept saying sort of sarcastically, "I must have missed that" until I told him it's about behaviors, not appearance, and told him about a couple of the more disturbing thoughts I had in the past. At that point he got uncomfortable and decided it was time to cook dinner.
Later, when we were having dinner, he kept trying to shove more steak on to my plate. I finally got exasperated and said, "How did you go from calling me fat to forcing food on me?"
"I never said that!" he said. So I reminded him of the whale comment, and he sort of looked down at his plate and mumbled, "I shouldn't have said that."
"Don't drink out of plastic bottles, that's why Christina Applegate got breast cancer!"
Right, because it's possible to pinpoint the exact cause--and the fact that her mother had it is just a coincidence. Of course, originally this circulated saying that was why Sheryl Crow had breast cancer.
"Light colored eyes let in more light, so people with pale eyes get more headaches."
Ummm ... light goes in through the pupil, not the iris. The iris is a muscle. Light doesn't filter through it. Critical thinking, people, and basic optical anatomy. Now, it's entirely reasonable to say that people with light eyes/hair/skin are more sensitive to light, but that's a different statement altogether. I think it's hilarious that a doctor told somebody this.
"OMG, don't use tampons! They make your period longer because they hold the blood in!"
I think some dude made this up. Any woman who's used a tampon knows they absorb the discharge, it's not like you're sticking a cork up your snatch to hold it all in!
"Eating meat is hard on your body."
*facepalm* Yeah, it's not like we've got enzymes to break down the proteins or anything, right? Humans certainly didn't develop eating a variety of foods, largely protein sources. I hate it when people say things like this. It might take longer to digest beef than, say, an apple--but that doesn't mean it's taxing for your system! This sort of thing, to me, smacks of rabid vegan/vegetarian attempts to convince people that eating meat is some strange modern adaptation, as if we never ate meat until the industrial revolution and so it's an unnatural state of being. But driving a smug-inducing hybrid car is totally natural!
A little more than a year ago, I wrote a quick post about acai berry advertising being stupid. Basically, I saw the ad on the right and didn't believe it for a damn second. But I was saddened to think that their are people out there desperate enough, and guillible enough, that they'd probably be willing to believe this--no matter the improbability of a person of that size losing that much weight, keeping it off, having no stretch marks or surgery scars to show for it .... and accomplishing all that with a miracle berry drink.
While writing the post immediately prior to this, I was looking at garter belts. I was just idling scrolling through them, when one caught my eye. I looked at it for a minute ... it looked familiar and I couldn't place it at first. Still, I had to go find my old entry to be sure.
Hmm, look at that! Same background, same lingerie, different face. Any doubt now that acai berry is total bullshit?
A few days ago at work, one of the managers had put on the local college radio statio. I didn't really pay much attention until I heard what I thought was The Beatles ... and Trent Reznor at the same time. Mashups are hilarious. I actually kind of like this one.
But what's truly funny is what I found on Youtube while looking for the mashup. Enjoy!
I went to the midnight showing of New Moon last night; my thoughts are here if you're interested. I did some homework afterward and finally made it to bed around six this morning. I promptly started having a ridiculous dream. I don't remember all of it, just that I was watching New Moon--but not the real movie. It had all the right characters, but it was a totally different storyline. There was some weird thing about Edward being in danger, and to save his life Bella had to have sex with Jacob--it was some sort of Anita Blake-esque magic thing.
It was really detailed, like different camera angles and music and deliberate shots of Taylor Lautner's rippling muscles (just like in the real movie). And in my dream I was watching this rather graphic scene where Jacob was essentially raping Bella, and thinking to myself "Well, that's really anti-feminist, to be eroticizing rape like that!"
I can't even relax and enjoy brain candy in my sleep, apparently.
My first class got out thirty minutes early, plus I have an hour gap between classes. So i'm sitting in the student center, rather bored actually. I actually forgot to stick a book in my backpack, which is nuts for me. But Jean Plaidy's "Royal Road To Fotheringhay" isn't captivating me, so I managed to forget it at home.
I'm going to work on a French assignment in a few minutes, but right now I'm just listening to Eric Clapton and watching the crowds of people. I've been at a university for long enough that most people's get-ups don't even register. There was a guy in full anarchist punk gear on the bus the other day, and I was just trying to figure out where I knew one of his symbols on his pants from. But every once in a while, I see somebody who I just feel bad for, because I feel like I'm looking at myself in middle school.
This girl just walked by who had a lot of individually interesting pieces on. Her coat was really cool, a full length trench in black and white checkerboard. But under it was a red and white splatter pattern polyester blouse--with one of those huge stupid puffs of ribbon at the throat. Big as her head, this mass was protruding from her open coat like a chest burster. Then she was wearing a skirt of some kind, with leggings underneath. Are the 80s back and no one told me? Because if so, I'm so on that shit. The crowning glory of the ensemble, though, was her shoes. Red patent leather clogs ... With ballerina-like ribbons wound up along her calves. Think I'm done? Oh no. They also were wooden platforms, about three inches high. And strangest of all, the back bottom of the heel on both shoes was cut out, like those old geisha kind of shoes--but on the heel end.
I think she was wearing a hat of some kind too, but my brain refused to absorb any more of this mess. It's like the girl in my French class who wears pastel plaid short-shorts with neon piss yellow tights--I have to pretend not to see or my brain might start smoking.
Where the hell are Stacey and Clinton when these people are out scarring retinas? Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
I am not a fan of Taylor Swift. I think her voice is annoying; I think her songs' subject matter is juvenile; and I am so freaking sick of hearing her songs! I think at work every night I hear four of them.
Unfortunately, the fact that I generally dislike her music doesn't stop her songs from getting lodged in my brain. Freaking ohrworms. I've had "Love Story" stuck in my head for what feels like weeks now. It's a pleasant enough sounding song; it's very poppy and catchy and all. I don't exactly hate it, but I don't really like it either. There are a lot of reasons; like the fact that it's crazy naive, for one thing.
But it also makes me giggle. First of all, anybody who uses Romeo and Juliet as a romantic ideal is just being lazy. And incorrect, really. Then mix that with a prince and princess metaphor--really?But this is the stanza that I really just love:
'Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter And my daddy said stay away from Juliet But you were everything to me I was begging you please don't go
That one line tossed in about a "scarlet letter" just adds whole hilarious depths to it. Suddenly this light-hearted teenage love is something adulterous and shameful! But wait--maybe it's just her, something about her will shame him and make him a societal outcast forever. Hilarious.
"Sorry to you Hillary Clinton and the entire women’s rights movement, but according to the bible you are “[not permitted to teach], nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness”. In other words, the Bible says you need to shut the fuck up. That is unless, of course, you’re a dirty wicked sinner. Then you can be president all you want."
