I own my beauty. I am beautiful. It took me a damn long time to get to this place, but it is here that I am firmly rooted and have been for some time. I do not come close to meeting the beauty standards for women in this society. My hair is long and wild and usually unkempt. My belly is big and round. My ass is huge, my thighs are heavy, and my tits are small. But here I am, still being beautiful. Continue reading
Love, trust, communication, intimacy… All are just a few staples of a healthy relationship, but what is to come when the intimacy leaves the building? Continue reading
I consider myself a fan of Japanese animation and the latest popular anime that I am into is called One Punch Man. It is about a man’s quest to become a hero for “fun”. His name is Saitama He is a hero in his spare time and he turns out to be the strongest hero in the world. So much so that he becomes bored of being a hero. There is a lack luster of the fun that he initially searched for because he is too strong. He defeats almost all the enemies that he has faced in ONE punch. He has such an aloof personality and he is easy going. He barely cares about anything except his dinner and his has such a calm personality while all the other heroes around him are vibrant and prepared for any kind of issues.
Saitama is a bald ordinary looking man with a thin, but well-built physique and of average height and weight. He claims to have lost all of his hair suddenly and prematurely as a result of the toll taken on his body by his intense hero training.
Saitama is usually deliberately drawn in a simpler style than all the other characters, with an elliptical shaped head and only a simple mouth and eyes. When drawn in a more serious style with more detail.
He gained the attention of the public and got a follower, Genos, who is constantly reaching to become stronger and to be better. he follows Saitama’s every word even when Saitama tells him to “get lost”. Genos becomes Saitama’s apprentice and he asks Saitama “How did you get this strong” and the secret comes out. Saitama tells him “100 PUSH-UPS, 100 SIT-UPS, 100 SQUATS, 10 KM RUNNING” and said that he does it everyday.
I think that it is really impressive how the show goes against the grain in a kind of way. The strongest able body human in the show is drawn as a skinny bald man who is more comical and not as serious. He wants to do it for fun. The idea that people’s bodies are different and after all these exercise methods that he has done his body is still slim and slender. The show also show interesting views public opinion of bodies and praises all types of bodies. I was impressed with that alternative form of body representation in media.
I remember it was a cold, dark night. I was back at my house in Columbia, and I believe I was in elementary school at the time. Back then, my dad was barely ever home, and this particular night happened to be one of those rare occasions where my mom was not home either. Fortunately, my sister was home to babysit me (sidenote: she is 12 years older than me), but at the time, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen her around the house for a good 30 minutes (sidenote: I was kind of needy). So I searched around the house, and finally I thought to look out the little windows to the side of the front door. I could just barely make out a dark figure at the door, with puffs of smoke slowly seeping out the figure’s mouth. The glow of a lit cigarette was also evident. A couple minutes later, after I ran far away from the front door, my sister came back inside. I told her I saw someone (“or something“) smoking right outside our front door. She seemed kind of panicky at this point, but then she replied, “Oh, it was just our neighbors, the Silvermans!”
Nice try, but why blame our nice Jewish neighbors?
Fast forward to the present, and my sister is still smoking. Note that she was just a small girl at a pretty shitty high school at the time of the incident described above; now, she’s a high-powered account executive in her early 30s. She has tried quitting on several different occasions, and just recently, she went about a month without lighting up. But she succumbed to the temptation this past week, blaming it on work stress, and that I could “never understand” how hard it is to really kick the habit. And honestly, I probably never will. From what I can tell, based on her addiction, as well as that of my father and my significant other, the lure of nicotine is terribly strong. It does not matter that the scent of tobacco stains everything she wears. It does not matter how many times my mom has tried to scare my sister with all the ailments and potential disabilities she could develop from a smoking habit. It does not matter that she knows all of this, because that is how true addiction works I guess.
I want to be as supportive as I can, but it’s admittedly becoming tougher by the day. She herself talks about how life was really hard for her, and that our mom was barely ever around when she was growing up. She sometimes gets annoyed with me, saying that she could have been working towards a medical degree too if only my mom was around to encourage her academic growth (she’s doing just fine work-wise though…I mean she’s making more money than most doctors ever will).
She mentioned that she started smoking due to peer pressure (which is weird to me, because I’ve always seen her as such a tough, intimidating person…), and she figured no one around the house would try to stop her. I was fortunate enough, in hindsight, to constantly have my mom there to supervise me and my development into the (arguably) healthy, neurotic asshole that I am today. I was lucky that our family’s financial situation was a million times better, just as I popped out into the world. I did not have to go to the high school my sister graduated from – instead, I ended up attending a much more competitive, high-ranking school (not to mention, most of the students I knew there were more interested in sabotaging my class rank than trying to get me to smoke). But it makes me wonder how much more susceptible I could have been to peer pressure and the lure of cigarettes, alcohol, or other types of drugs if my privileges were not available to me.
Technology changes our bodies. It can let us do so much more, and go beyond our normal bodily capabilities. However, it can also damage our bodies. Continue reading
I just wanted to say thank you, Unruly Bodies! Continue reading
I want to talk about the people that we avoid talking about. The people we avoid making eye contact with when we’re at a stop light or walking down the street.
“You are a rare bird, the kind I wouldn’t even mind writing in the margins of my books.” -Ani DiFranco
I’m in love with my best friend. Oh…and she lives with her boyfriend of two years.
In 2010, I lost 50lbs. With a weight loss such as this, my boobs hit the ground. I had never had any intention of getting a breast augmentation before, despite working and loving the beauty industry. I preferred a more natural look for myself. However, when facing the choice of the condition of my breasts after the weight loss, I decided to go with breast augmentation. Continue reading
She’s a lonely, bitter old woman.
She told my roommate once that she hopes dirt enters her eyes. Ironically, the woman’s eyes appear to be darker than the color of dirt itself, an illustration of what her soul must look like. Continue reading
Unruly Bodies 