A NEW EDITION OF TTITIN

This addition of Things The Internet Thinks I Need starts with a list:

• mushroom growing kits (that’s probably true)

• swimsuits ( I rarely wear the one I own)

• expensive ethically sourced seafood shipped right to my door (I mean, yeah, but who do you think I am? Scrooge McDuck?)

• camper vans (my fault because I keep looking at camper vans)

• wedding planning (record scratch….whut?)

Yeah, so all of those things except one could possibly be of use. Oh…I forgot psychedelic mushroom counseling. Even that is of possible use to me, but wedding planning? Really, Internet? I don’t even know what magic code of words I have entered in any kind of search bar to merit a targeted ad about planning my wedding. They want to sell me the best gift for a bridesmaid and the best destination weddings and tips on floral arrangements. These are all things I didn’t do the first time around and if Michael ever convinces me to get married again, those are things I will not do the second time around.

I like to think that all this means is that the robots don’t remotely have a clue as to who I am and when the Robot Apocalypse happens, they won’t be ready for someone like me.

Pow! Pow!

That’s really all I have to say right now. I’m too busy at work to think about anything other than work while I am at work (and sometimes not). When I’m home, I spend an hour watching TV and the rest of the time reading. Right now, I’m reading Unbound: A Woman’s Guide to Power by Kasia Urbaniak. It’s a book recommended by my friend Erica. She and our friend Abi are going to have book club like meetings to discuss it. I’m on page fifty something and will continue to read even though I’m so wound up in a Good Girl Double Bind that I probably cannot be unbound. After this book, I plan on finishing Project Hail Mary before starting on What Fresh Hell is This?

I have compiled a folder of show prints and made a list of sizes.

I’m eating lots of cheese.

You’d think the Internet would have noticed and mentioned something about the amount of cheese I’ve been eating.

It has not.

GOAL WEIGHT

I am currently reading Phoebe Robinson’s Everything is Trash, But it’s Okay. Phoebe Robinson is a comedian/writer that if you haven’t read any of her essays, you should be reading her essays because she is smart, insightful and hilarious. I read You Can’t Touch My Hair last year and felt like this is one (of many) of those books you give to that one ‘friend’ who just doesn’t get the concept of white privilege. Phoebe Robinson is definitely on my list for that imaginary dinner party. She is also adorable and just might make my ridiculous Life List as Hug Phoebe Robinson. I am not far into Everything is Trash. Actually, I got stuck on page four for way too long because I couldn’t get past the idea of a Google search involving David Bowie and pets and if I too should try that Google search. I eventually made it to the essay titled I Was a Size 12 Once for Like Twenty-Seven Minutes where she talks about body confidence and the first two sentences grabbed ahold of me so that I nodded my head in understanding as I read the whole essay.

Since I was fourteen, my brain has been consumed with the ways my body is not good enough, meaning not attractive to straight dudes and/or failing to meet fashion-industry standards. Even now, at thirty-four, and with a deeper understanding of how we’ve been conditioned to have unhealthy relationships with our bodies, I still remember what I weighed eight years ago as if that’s important information.

I had some birthday money to spend at Anthropologie. They were also having a big 50% off sale items sale, which I can never resist. I didn’t really need anything, but if you tell me the price is going to be FIFTY PERCENT off an already marked down price, I am going to find something that I suddenly desperately can’t live without. In this case, it was a pair of pants, but because of the sale, the only sizes left were those that were not really my size. I bought the closest to my size and just hoped it might work. When they arrived, I immediately ripped open the package and tugged them onto my body. I struggled with buttons and the pants felt snug. I frowned, but then put them in my closet with the idea of making them ‘goal’ pants. Later on, Michael asked me about the pants. I told them they are a bit snug, but that’s okay because they can be something to aim for. He gave me a questioning look and said “Really? You think you need to lose more weight?” I shrugged and said something about losing a few more pounds. Then he asked me “What’s your goal weight?” and I couldn’t give him an answer. I don’t have a ‘goal’ weight because in my head, I can always stand to lose a few more pounds.

And that is FUCKED UP.

That says to me that no matter what, I will never be the “right” size or weight and the fact that this is in my brain, makes me furious. I should know better. I do know better! There are long stretches of time when I do not think about my weight or the amount of cheese I’ve eaten. I don’t step onto a scale everyday or even once a week. Last week, I missed two days of exercise because I had a sore throat and felt icky and I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for skipping the rowing machine or the barre class on those days. I do feel bad about cancelling my yoga class, but I’d rather be at my best when teaching yoga, than sickly. The thing is, my weight is not forefront in my mind. The awareness of my size is just hovering in my periphery, waiting for just the right moment to swoop down and make me feel like shit. I know I’m not alone in this way of thinking because all women have had to grow up in this male set/fashion industry standard.

Here’s where Phoebe Robinson’s essay really resonated with me. She went on to talk about how all of us have these feelings, but then she goes on to talk about how we do not support each other outside of our own feelings. Phoebe listed some statistics from a study that shows how obese women are less likely to be hired for jobs, even though they are well qualified to do the job. She went on to write about how often obese women are dismissed and ignored just because of their size and that is some straight up trashiness right there. It got me wondering if I do enough to support those around me. When was the last time I expressed my beliefs that all bodies are yoga bodies? Reading Phoebe’s book of essays forces me to look at my own problems and issues while reminding me that all of us are struggling and how we can lesson each others struggle by supporting, hearing and encouraging one another. That means doing more than just ‘liking’ someone’s Instagram photo. For me, this means creating a yoga class where every body feels welcome. The Zoom yoga space I am creating hopefully does this.

I put those pants on Saturday and there is absolutely nothing wrong with how they fit my body. Have I lost weight since the last time I tried them on? I don’t know. I don’t think so and I don’t care. Whatever my current weight is at this moment? That’s my goal weight.

WRITING A MILLION WORDS

Laundry day

7 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Laundry day"

The other day, I started a word document on my computer for the sole intention of writing a specific story. All of my other bits of started stories are on the drive which means I have access to them whenever I am not near my personal computer. I kind of thought if I put it in a word document on my computer that I would specifically dedicate a certain amount of time every day to sit and write. That happened four days ago. I added two sentences to the two pages I'd copied and pasted over from a drive document. You know what I did Sunday after finishing laundry, making ghee, washing dishes (we use a lot of dishes on Sundays) and cleaning the bathroom? It sure wasn't writing. I organized my sock and underwear drawer. It's really nice. I should have taken a picture of it to show you. 

I also read. I've been reading Loving Day by Mat Johnson and I'm pretty much in love with this guy's writing style. There have been many times I've had to stop and read some things out loud because of how the words were strung together. I need to stop doing this because it's slowing me down. I pre-ordered Circe by Madeline Miller and it arrived days ago. I'm really excited about this book, but I've always been the kind of reader who finishes a book before starting another. Even though my fingers twitched to open up to the first page, I set it down and walked away. The idea of hearing Circe's side of the story, even if it's made up, is oh so appealing to me. I didn't really care for the Odyssey when I read it as a kid. Actually, all of those old Greek stories have been on my least favorite list mostly because women are either no where in the story, a beautiful damsel in distress or a witch. 

My insecurities were developed hundreds of thousands of years ago, just like all women. It has been passed down from ancient ancestors through art and storytelling. From the earliest literature, women have been depicted as meek and mild or hateful and villainous or a combination of all of those things. We are rarely depicted as warriors and depicted lovingly only when our bellies are are round with child, most specifically a boy child. We are never smart or if found to be cleaver we must be doing the Devil's work. Women are deceitful. I can't even bare to pick up classic literature anymore without cringing. It reminds me how long and slow our struggle for this current level of equality has been. It's been over three hundred years since the last witch trial. It's been about a hundred years since a woman was arrested for protesting for her right to a vote. It's been fifty five years since Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, though we still see discrepancies in equal pay.

All of this has nothing to do with my inability to discipline myself into writing every day. It does have everything to do with how I want to twine words together. I once heard someone say that to be a better writer, you should read from different writers. So that's what I'm doing. I'm reading so that I can eventually write a million words. 

LOVE THRUSDAY

When I was little, I read all of the Little House books. My favorite one for some reason was On the Banks of Plum Creek. I was fascinated by the sod house or dugout that they lived in and would spend hours in our pasture "building" my own sod house. I'd wear my bonnet and one of my prairie style dresses and I'd set up a home in the pasture. What? I'm from Oklahoma. Of course I owned a bonnet and a prairie dress. Every kid in Oklahoma had some type of pioneer outfit because you didn't get through elementary school with out re-enacting the Oklahoma Land Run at least once. Actually, I don't even think you're allowed to graduate unless you've been in at least one performance of the musical Oklahoma! . Also, you probably know all of the words to the B.C. Clarke Jewelry store Christmas jingle. You could re-write any of those sentences with "you might be an Oklahoman if..." and my Oklahoma readers out there are all nodding their heads and raising a hand with an "Amen!". 

Any way..sod house...Laura Ingalls Wilder. I still had long hair then and mom would put it into two long french braids. I'd put that bonnet on and I was Laura Ingalls. I'd fill my Strawberry Shortcake tablecloth up with dishes, a teapot, maybe some bread if I could sneak it from the kitchen and tie up the ends in a hobo sack and cart all of it out to my makeshift sod house. There was a lot to keeping up your sod house. Sweeping. Setting the table. Finding water. Prairie life wasn't easy and I'd spend all day working on it. While most kids were playing G.I. Joe or Smurf, I was playing Little House on the Prairie. This was not unusual. I played more book characters than cartoon characters. There was a tag game we used to play where you had to say a cartoon character name to keep from getting tagged. I was always getting tagged because I couldn't come up with a cartoon character as quickly as a book character. The summer I read the Little House books was the summer I lived as Laura. 

As we made our way up Hwy 29 through South Dakota, my eyes grew large as I read "Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead, Exit 133". I looked over at Talaura to see that she had the same look as I felt I had on my face and said "We might need to make a detour". Talaura did some fast research and when it was discovered that not only was it Laura's homestead, but also where she met and married Almonzo Wilder there was no question. We detoured. I may or may not have emitted a squeal of delight as we drove up to the homestead and once we were inside, I headed straight to the dugout, which had been built as a replica of the one the Ingalls lived in on the banks of Plum Creek in Walnut Grove, MN. I placed my hands on the dirt sod walls. I could smell the earth. I watched my feet kick up little clouds of dust as I walked across the floor. I was standing inside a book. And I've just teared up thinking about it. For a moment, I was once again that little girl with french braids and a bonnet, playing in the pasture. 

This is what books and reading does to me. It turns me into a nostalgic sap, but I don't even care. In my lifetime I have been Alice chasing a white rabbit, Lucy peaking through a wardrobe door. I was Juana Maria, surviving on my own on my own little island. And I was Laura Ingalls, living a prairie life and falling in love with Almonzo. I have lived so many lives. 

Happy Love Thursday.