body shop

my mind feels like my room right now: clumps of clutter and chaos among barren voids that indicate the potential for order and peace.

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there are a few great blog posts floating around about how american apparel is "sizist" and propagating the ideal the fashion world set long ago: thin is in.

my friend (who is average-sized like me) and i recently lamented shopping at retail stores. it's not fun. you leave hating your body and hating yourself and hating society and hating every "hot" person wearing a nice outfit you encounter on your sullen train ride home. i'll tell you a secret: my distaste for shopping is why i haven't bought pants in about a year. too depressing to try them on. also, today's jean styles for women are ugly.

there, i said it. i don't like your jeans. hell, i don't even like the jeans i own and used to wear.

i wear american apparel everyday. if it weren't for the interlock pencil skirt, i don't know what i would wear on my lower half. i own 5 of them and 2 interlock mini skirts. guess what size i wear? large. i'm not a big girl. i'm not super small, but i don't think i'm "large". no wonder someone who is actually large can't fit their clothes!

i have mixed feelings about the fat-positive movement -- some positive, some negative. i want to believe in it and stand behind it. but something is holding me back from totally buying it. i don't think this is a good place for me to get into these feelings because i'm bound to gloss over something and offend. i also can't completely understand it because i'm not in it.

ok, i can't help myself: it seems like posturing. how how how how how can someone truly be body positive in such a fat-negative society? how can you deprogram yourself from everything you've seen and heard and been called and been told and not fit into? how? how can you find the positive side of being marginalized? of being charged for two plane seats? of telling the hostess at the restaurant that you need to sit at a table because you can't fit in a booth? how can you move past this and be positive? that takes incredible strength. i'm glad the movement exists. i just don't know that i buy it. it is hard for me to imagine being able to move past all of this. again, i am outside of the movement, so i don't expect to be able to completely understand it.

either way, society sucks sometimes. i suck sometimes. we all do. ::shrug::

sometimes i just want to grow into a huge all-mother goddess creature and hug everyone in the world (even evil people!!!) and rock them and tell them that everything is going to be okay. even though it isn't.

everybody's laughing

sorry i dissed you so badly the other day, midwest. it's been a rough couple weeks for me.

today was the first day of summer and the ceiling fan swirling steamy air above me reminds me that i have months of this to look forward to. restless, clammy nights fighting the dueling urges: a desire to snuggle under covers and wanting to take even my skin off.

a while ago, a friend noted that the onset of summer wasn't really a big deal to him when he lived in austin, tx. he said summer is far more important in chicago, because he has a sense of survival. he feels we deserve sunny days like we experienced today because we make it through so many miserable months around the turn of the year. i've yet to feel that way, though i've never known what it is to live somewhere that doesn't have distinct seasons. i've always taken for granted that i will experience winter and it will be less pleasant than summer. i don't know how well i'd actually hold up in a milder climate.

even though i missed the best part of the day weather-wise as i was trapped inside, pushing iced beverages of all sorts, i had a great first summer day. i had some pints in open air and debated The Point of Life, then ate overpriced mexican food, and ended the day on a see-saw beneath a super magical moon with one swell gal.

for me, the pleasure to be found in the early days of summer are not the relief from cold blustery chicago winters, but the idea that tomorrow could be a return to winter-jacket-days. it could be some lame metaphor for living your life to the fullest, but it's more about not bitching about the weather.

you were definitely born outside

i'm fed up with the midwest.

it hit me like a busload of 5'10"-meat-and-potatoes-fed women today.

i'm not always going to be sick of it. it's usually bearable. i like it here, to be honest. but today, right now, and for about six or seven hours leading up to now, i am fed up with the midwest.

i looked around me on the train. looked at the faces and the bodies and the fashions. i looked at the streets and the parks and the cars. i walked past a few bars after class, hoping for an empty stool. i looked at the cups on the tables in front of my classmates tonight.

::cringe::

this morning i got a letter and mix tape in the mail from a friend on the west coast and this evening i spoke for about an hour on the phone with a friend back home in the springs. smack in the middle of that, i realized that i am totally sick of it. i need a change of scenery.

i don't know that i can put it into words. jeff has been trying to verbalize it for the entire time he's been here. maybe "fed up" is too strong. unamused? bored? i think "bored" is a closer fit.

i'm going to be here for at least a little while longer, and i'll be able to manage. last summer treated me pretty well, and i expect this will too (pavement, superchunk, ween -- in reverse order). i've got a good thing going with the cafe and i like my friends here. the question is, will i survive another winter?

on a radder note, check out what i snagged for less than 10 bones:

girltalk

in the last two nights i've taken myself on as many dates.

last night i saw "Please Give" and it was really good. i cried. sure, i'm pretty emotionally volatile, but the film moved me nonetheless. have any of you seen it? let's talk about it! i rarely go see movies, so i feel really hip and with-it when i do.

tonight i'm at a (cheesy) bar drinking wine and trying to get myself to do work while avoiding the homestead. i also bought myself dinner.

but seriously, being a spinster isn't so bad. though i have some crazy knots in my back and wouldn't mind having a boyfriend make them go away. and tell me i'm pretty. that's all i really want from my next relationship: backrubs and compliments. and chocolate. and kisses.

i read a poem on a blog written by another single female barista living in chicago (no, she's not my friend; i found her blog through this site) and it was about eating toast in bed and watching 30 Rock on Hulu and the warmth of the laptop in her bed. brotherhood of (wo)man. personally, i only ever eat apples in bed. and the occasional handful of dry cereal. either way, it was comforting to see that another person has so many life situations that are similar to my own.

it doesn't mean we aren't lonely, it means we're okay being alone.

do i sound like carrie bradshaw? i don't want to.

off the wagon, y'all

things i've been thinking about:

- there are so many things i want to know more about. i am overwhelmed and feel i'll never find the time to learn them all. is this the sad result of the 'information age'? hypertext is, at times, the bane of my intellectual existence. because how the hell am i supposed to keep up with current events and other stuff? and also have a life?!?

- i'm taking a course called 'fandom and active audiences' next semester and i think i'm going to do a project on juggalo culture. i keep having great fantasies of embedding myself in the juggalo community. please support me, friends. i have to get to the bottom of this (and magnets).

- I MISS BLOGGING. i hardly ever write for myself. at least blogging gives me a reason to write. otherwise my thoughts just fester and that's not productive.

- i bought even more comics two days ago so i'm going to sip on this white russian and get to work. they aren't going to read themselves!

i blogged again

... but it was on this blog here.

click that link to read about comic books i bought today and to hear what i've been hearing lately.

in other news, i got stuck at the lake mid-run today. ya know how i get swept up in the beauty of the world sometimes? it happened today. it was really windy and kind of cold but i couldn't stop watching the little waves crash and reminding myself it's a lake i look at, not an ocean. when i got up to run i was so mad i sat for so long.