Okay, my mama never said that. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking/reading. It’s a corny book called the Same Sweet Girls (I’m pretty sure I’ve tried reading it before and only made it to the second chapter but I’m on the third now, hey! A new record!). A character in it has this book of life lessons and she writes down all these things that she has learned so that she doesn’t repeat her mistakes.
Believe it or not (I only put the “or not” part there for formality’s sake), I can sometimes comes up with some pretty profound epiphanies (when I’m not subconsciously plagiarizing them from a Chicken Soup for the Soul book). And so I decided to regularly install some of my own life sayings into this blog so that you can all revel in my brilliance and maybe one day, I’ll actually learn from them .Also, I’m getting a little annoyed that I don’t have any “categories” so this fulfills that purpose.
So here ya go…
A regret isn’t really a regret if you only regret it when you’re feeling lonely.
Don’t you feel enlightened?
So go ahead.
Memorize it.
Write it on one of those god awful post-its.
Tattoo it on your forehead.
Because I sure as hell should.
It’s so true of my life. I’m so happy with choices that I make when I’m satisfied with my life. And then when the tiny bit of an obstacle shows up, I immediately start questioning it.
Now there is my first “Virgin Inversion” (yeah, you try coming up with something that rhymes with virgin). I am so making a category. Stoked!
I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while but I didn’t want to make the effort.
Well, the perfect opportunity just threw itself in my face in the form of this… First of all, I want to make it clear that I think Jessica Simpson is an idiot. Her prancing around in a bikini on daytime television and being unable to figure out that tuna isn’t chicken is not my idea of showing a polished character.
But she is a human being.
She is not fat.
She looks like what an average woman should look like. Sure, it would be really cool if we could all walk around wearing daisy dukes but it is not possible. You heard me, not possible. Biologically, we are not built to look like Jessica Simpson did in those days. Even in a practical manner, it just can’t be done. Most of us would have to quit our jobs to start working out full time at the gym and eating steam for dinner… we wouldn’t even get close. And we’d be poor (bright side: maybe Shell will hire us at the carwash station so at least we could put on bikinis and slather polish and antifreeze all over our bodies for money).
Jessica is finally looking like a woman instead of a child. Good for her.
I want to make a distinction here. I am not okay with being overweight. In no way am I trying to tell you that being obese is okay because I honestly do believe that it contains risks that are more important than sacrificing your size 2 Prada dress. My dad is diabetic, diabetes runs in my family, and as many other overweight people, I am at risk for other issues as well. I don’t want heart disease and I’m too young to go into cardiac arrest.
But see, this is what I’m trying to say.
Yes, I’m fat. Yes, I know. I know it. So why are you trying to go around rub it in my face?
What makes people so anxious to jump on anyone who gains a little bit of weight? I don’t want this to come off in a self-centered way but it kinda does feel like a personal attack on my weight. These gossip magazines and bloggers are so paranoid about weight. So if Jessica Simpson’s 15 pound weight gain makes her a cow, what am I supposed to be, a blue whale?
Everywhere I go, I am told to be thinner. To look a certain way. To be able to fit into certain things.
Why the hell is this important? Why does my size effect you? Do I go around telling you to ditch that scarf because the colour does nothing for you? No. That is not classy. And it is my opinion. Opinions are dangerous if you don’t keep a cap on them.
If Sarah makes fun of overweight people, Brad who never really had an opinion on weight starts making fun of overweight people, he passed this on to his girlfriend who ridicules overweight people in front of her kids who grow up thinking being overweight is a fate worse than AIDS.
I am a fat girl. I don’t know why the world likes to make me feel bad about it. It’s not like if they stop telling me that, my weight will spiral out of control. It is already out of control. There is nothing you or anyone else can do about it. All you’re doing is making me feel worse. Which, guess what, making me feel worse isn’t really helping me lose the weight.
If I lost a pound everytime an ad, a movie, a person, any one tried to make me feel bad about my weight, I’d look like Nicole Richie’s popsicle.
It is my weight. My struggle.
Even if you think I look like shat. Come on, there’s this thing called tolerance. It’s kinda nice. It means we can treat people with respect and in return be treated with respect (crazy idea, right?).
I can take a fatty joke once in a while like I can take a sexist joke. It’s only okay when we both know it isn’t true.
Being overweight doesn’t make me a bad person. It may mean I have low will power, it may mean I like chocolate too much, it may mean I’m too lazy to go to the gym…
It may also mean that half my family has a tendency to be obese, it may mean that I have been overweight since I was a baby, it may mean that I have almost killed myself yo-yo dieting, it may mean that I am too intimidated to face the fact that I might never have it in me to become thinner, it may mean that I care more about life than about my daily caloric intake, it may mean that there is more to me than the size of my jeans.
And I wish this was where it ended but…
If you have time, watch this video.
And take some time to listen to these young, absolutely gorgeous women talk about what society expects of them.
Even if you have a few seconds, at least watch the part where the black kids pick the white doll as the “good” doll and the black doll as the “bad” doll.
This takes it to a whole new fucking level.
I am so angry about this. I cannot even explain it to you right now.
I’m brown. I’m not black. When I grew up in the east, everyone was trying to have lighter skin but that was okay (it was kind of like tanning) because everyone was brown. We were all brown together.
Now where the hell do you get off trying to make black kids think they need to be white?
I don’t even think I need to say anything about this. It is explains itself. There are so many things wrong with that.
It makes me sick.
Really really sick.
Because now, it’s not that you’re not good enough because you haven’t changed yourself to fit the barbie ideal. It’s the fact that you’ll never fit into the barbie ideal no matter how hard you try.
I am so terribly depressed for those kids and I know that all we can hope for is a overhaul of the whole social system in North America.
Because what is the alternative? For every self-empowering ad, you have 80 million ads telling you that you suck.
We need change.
I was talking to my friend today and she told me that she admired me for being a virgin. She’s one of those girls who absently passed off her v-card or misplaced it. She’s one of the ones who wished she’d never done it.
I told her not to bother with it. The concept of virginity is overrated. No one is really sure what it means anyway. Is it a symbol of purity? Is it proof that your woman isn’t cheating on you with another man? Is it the hymen being fully intact?
Well no. Not all virgins are innocent, I’m a classic case. There are other ways to cheat than just intercourse. There are women born without a hymen and have never had sex. Exceptions to the rule? More liked evidence that the idea is flawed.
My friend was totally wasted and had sex. Doesn’t remember any of it. Is she a virgin?
Another friend has done everything, and I mean everything with her boyfriend, but actual intercourse. Is she a virgin?
And what if a girl deflowers herself? Is she a virgin?
I’m not even going to start on male virginity.
Virginity is elusive. No one has really figured out a universal definition for It. In most cases, I’m a virgin. In practically all cases, I’m a virgin.
It doesn’t mean anything.
What about when the deed is done. Is there something felt that signifies the transition? A way to know if you are one or not? A revelation? An epiphany?
Well, hell if I know, I’m the virgin here.
I always get the best ideas in the shower… or on the toilet. It’s like the washroom has this hotspot of creative energy.
Like that guy… was it Pythagoras? Who was in a roman bath when he got his “great big idea” and went running down the street naked?
Well, I kind of understand why he did that. Because as much as the washroom is a hotspot, it’s also a black hole. It will not let you leave with your ideas. In fact, any of these breakthroughs will promptly vanish as you step through the door. Such is the life, and you know I’m right too. I bet many a solution to Global Warming has been devised on a toilet.
First of all, I want to make it clear that I think Jessica Simpson is an idiot. Her prancing around in a bikini on daytime television and being unable to figure out that tuna isn’t chicken is not my idea of showing a polished character.
