59

“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.”

— Albert Schweitzer

My 4th Coachella left me feeling like I need to be comatose for the remainder of April and half of May. Over the 2.5 days, Rob and I walked 60,767 steps (~26 miles) and danced/jumped 17 flights of stairs in the desert heat on little sleep. My blisters are so bad, I had to go barefoot most of the weekend.

But. It. Was. So. Much. Fun.

Acts we saw included LCD Soundsystem, Jack U, Christine and the Queens, Lido, Jaden Smith, Ice Cube, Disclosure, RL Grime, Silversun Pickups, ZHU, Alunageorge, Guns and Roses, Calvin Harris, Sia (feat. Maddie Zieglar & Kristen Wiig), The Arcs, Major Lazer, Flume, Rancid, Nathaniel Rateliff, Tokimonsta, Usher, etc.

We met Mickey Avalon and chilled near Andre 3000 from Outkast in the Rose Garden. We made a friend from San Paolo, Brazil who spent most of Friday night with us. Sadly, I barely met up with my friends that were there, it's so hard to coordinate. We did get to see Rob's cousin and his friend from high school. Everyone loved the weekend.

And R, I couldn't have asked for a better partner to go with. I had so much fun dancing and loving you. P.S. thank you for not asking me to wear that flower crown, I was having a slight identity crisis with the corniness. P.P.S Let's get married.

58

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”

— John F. Kennedy

Skinny doesn't equal fit.

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Fit isn't a number on the scale or a body type. It's a body feeling.

I used to be unbelievably fit. I would go to the gym 6 days a week and feel guilty as hell if I didn't make it 7. I would not leave the gym unless I burned at least 800 calories through cardio alone. After, I would do weights and floor work. I would run at a resting speed of 6.5- 7 mph with frequent intervals at 8- 8.8 mph for a solid hour. I could run and run and run and never ever get tired. I would stop when I felt bored enough. I was in incredible shape and even went on retreats to health spas and took tests to see how I could become fitter.

Despite my level of fitness, I've never been skinny, and I probably never will be. I have an athletic body type, as you can see in the pictures above of when I was in shape. I have a big butt, strong arms, and calves that are more muscular than I would like (thanks, Dad). Plus, I like to eat!!! Because I sprained my ankle CONSTANTLY in different sports and activities, including 3x during a varsity lacrosse season, I had to get ligament and tendon surgery when I was 20. This totally threw me off. Being unable to walk, I quickly gained 20+ pounds. I gave in to laziness and comfort, and I lost my fit body throughout recovery and the remainder of college.

Since I can remember, I have been praised for my looks and (after the awkward teenage years) recognized for my face and body. I grew up around people who preached the importance of looks, like how happiness stems from physical appearance. We, as women, are lied to from birth: we are not required to look like society wants us to; we are not lesser if we do not look like society expects. I've been UN-TEACHING myself all of the lies that were shoved down my throat and gaining weight surprisingly helped that process along. In fact, I think I have been in this spot for as long as I have been partially as a form of protest. It has been an interesting experiment. I am the manifestation of "FUCK YOU. I WILL LOOK LIKE WHAT I WANT, DO WHAT I WANT, EAT WHAT I WANT. You can either love it, and I mean ALL of it, or get out of my way."

Do I think being somewhat overweight is a huge burden to bear and I'm a martyr? Not at all. More than sending a message to anyone else, I figured out I've been trying to send a message to ME. The lies I tell and expectations I put on myself have been a battle my whole life. I've learned I CAN be overweight and still do everything and anything I want to. I can still have incredible sex, fall in love, have a ton of friends, feel sexy, go out in cute clothes, be a role model, and have an active lifestyle. Are there days where I feel self-conscious and fat as hell? Of course. Is it still a daily internal battle? It can be. Do I still think about and call out my flaws? More often than I would like. But I've come a long way with self-acceptance, and I am more confident today than I was 3 years ago in great shape and eating a can of raw tuna fish for lunch.

My worth is dictated by my soul, my intentions, my thoughts. This seems cliché, but it is something we women have to teach ourselves despite all odds and messages. With this growing change in mentality, I am interested in getting back into shape again. Not for vanity, but for new reasons: health and self-love. Enough with laziness and using my appearance to prove I can have it all no matter what. Like all other goals in my life, I'm going to do this. For me.

Now here's a funny video I adore:

53

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Pretty by Katie Makkai

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, “What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? What comes next? Oh right, will I be rich?” Which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception, passing blood and breath into cells. The word hangs from our mothers' hearts in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry.

“Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?” But puberty left me this funhouse mirror dryad: teeth set at science fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long and pox-marked where the hormones went finger-painting. My poor mother. 

“How could this happen? You'll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist. You sucked your thumb. That's why your teeth look like that! You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were 6. Otherwise your nose would have been just fine!

“Don't worry. We'll get it fixed!” She would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way and that, as if it were a cabbage she might buy. 

But this is not about her. Not her fault. She, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade. By 16, I was pickled with ointments, medications, peroxides. Teeth corralled into steel prongs. Laying in a hospital bed, face packed with gauze, cushioning the brand new nose the surgeon had carved.

Belly gorged on 2 pints of my blood I had swallowed under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside out, “What did you let them do to you!”

All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on, like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood. “Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Like my mother, unwrapping the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her? Pretty? Pretty.”

And now, I have not seen my own face for 10 years. I have not seen my own face in 10 years, but this is not about me. 

This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven't a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath those 2 pretty syllables.

About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crest-fallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable. 

This, this is about my own some-day daughter. When you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters.

“You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you, will never be merely 'pretty'.”