Ok World, Let's Be Better: Hidden Male Depression

Photo credit Vincent Giordano/
Trinacria Photography

Yet another web famous, "well-adjusted," happy teenager commits suicide. When I see titles like this, I can't help but be concerned. The CDC reports that suicide is the third leading cause of death among people aged 10-24 in the US, 4,600 young people a year, and 81% of these deaths are males. We are failing teenage boys. Something needs to change.

As a teacher of literature, I feel like I have a relatively opportunistic stance in the education of young people: through literature we can wrestle with social and emotional issues that the media sometimes portrays as black and white and make things a little complicated. Classically feminist readings are sometimes the most advantageous places to promote gender discussion.

The Child Study Centre reports that by 13 years, twice as many girls as boys are clinically depressed and tend to stay that way till adulthood. An Oxford University study, further, found that while women are 40% more likely to develop depression than men, they are also 75% more likely to report having been recently depressed and 60% more likely to report an anxiety disorder.

These conflicting statistics beg the question: how well do we really know how our boys feel?

Boys, young men, older men, they are sensitive and emotive, sometimes behind an exterior of lackadaisical indifference, anti-social behavior, or, so it seems, a restless splash of happiness.

While gender-concerned groups have worked to make it safe for women to like science and maths, found non-pink and biologically accurate barbies, dolls, and other toys, and made the world a safer place for trans-gender children, boys have often born the brunt of the media disdain, being either ignored or chastened for their (boy)sterous, wild behavior and non-pc language, being proffered as potentially abusive, both physically and sexually, and more often than not, set up as a societal villain.

The hashtag #noteveryman sparked outrage in 2014 when men pushed back against allegations that "men are..."

Yet as men are villainized in the media around the world, (and sometimes rightly so), have we been offering boys any alternative to the guns-blazing, super-hero motif that we've been offering them? While I want our boys to see strong, complicated characters, with weaknesses and struggles, and ALSO integrity, I also want them to feel like they can make mistakes and search there hearts for answers. I want them to know that they are not inherently bad, and that they have a lot to offer the world.

Are we living in a world that doesn't offer them any way out of either the "badass" motif or the "nice guy" motif? I would say that the evidence doesn't seem to imply this.

We need to do better, for women, yes, who more often than not tend to be victims in our world, but also for our boys, and our men, who have the same sensitive hearts, anxieties, fears, and sadness, and who are much, much less likely to tell anyone about it until it's too late.

My Other Half

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with 4 arms, 4 legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” ― Plato

People who say that Eastern philosophy is dead in the West need to check out our attitudes of love and romance. Everywhere you go ideas of "incomplete", "better half," "significant other," "partner," and now even "relationship synergy" abound. Millions of people have taken to dating websites, marriage websites, and I believe that now 1-8 marriages found each other online. WOW. Yin and Yang philosophies abound, that the dichotomy of man and woman (or woman/woman, man/man) is a balance that exists for a reason, that we complete and fulfill one another, and that being alone is bad.

In the age of internet quiz mania (which I absolutely love btw), we can find our Disney Prince, discover Your Celebrity Boyfriend, (I could go on, alas, but I won't.)

Even more embedded in the Chinese philosophy of balance and embodying yin and yang is the dragon and the phoenix. Traditionally also representing the Emperor and his Empress, the dragon embodies justice, power, and all things masculine. The phoenix, on the other hand, is mercy, healing, grace and other traditionally feminine virtues.

While internet quizzing may not be the way forward, now, more than ever, society is studying human cultures, impulses, drives, talents, and voices. We want to know about the experiences of different races, religions, sexes, genders, (I could go on). But often one voice that is always heard with sarcasm and derision is the voice of the celibate. The voice of people who have chosen to forego sex, to not seek for balance within a partner, but within themselves. I do acknowledge that many couples don't adhere to the "complete me" mentality; however, I still find it as a default attitude in many people and cultures that I encounter.

So as a single almost-30, I've been lauded for my hard work and prowess, and derided for being "too independent," "too clever," and even been told "men like women who need them." And while I didn't give into those taunts that I'd be single forever unless I toned down my independence, a part of me bought the dichotomy philosophy, and I focused on being the phoenix: I became gentle, I invested in people, I worked on my care giving, I improved my listening techniques.

None of that is wrong. There is nothing wrong with gentleness, peace-making, listening, mentoring, etc. It's to be applauded wherever it is found. The mistake I made was within myself to say, "I'm the phoenix, I take care of people and sometimes others take advantage of me, so I need a dragon... someone who will stop others from taking advantage, protect me, support me. Someone I can nurture and heal."

Being a martyr and letting people take advantage of your gentleness isn't being a phoenix. Waiting for someone to rescue you isn't a good thing. Sometimes us single girls have to rescue ourselves. So now that I've developed the phoenix in me, (and my inner dragon has laid dormant for a while) I need to get back to developing the dragon. For me, this does not mean being masculine, but walking the line of grace and justice. Forgive people, but let them know they hurt you. Invest in others, but not at the sacrifice of your own health and well being. For me, this also means that I've started taking jiu jitsu classes.

One of my passions is educating the more forlorn members of the world. My dream is to move to Brazil and work with street children and ex-prostitutes. Every person I've talked to about this has mentioned how dangerous Brazil can be. While the Brazilian people I've met are generous and loving, many Brazilian women have told me horror stories of misogyny in their country. While a lot of men are now standing with women for women's rights, there are still men who feel entitled to prey on women. More often than not this happens in developing cultures. Like the people I most want to reach. So should I wait for a man to marry me and join in on my quest? #Ain'tnobodygottimeforthat. No. I'll take jiu jitsu and hone my self defense skills. I'll read up on the risks and dangers of this part of the world--I'll invest in the dragon part of myself.

Proverbs 27:17 says "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." 

While this verse has been adopted in many marriage ceremonies, the original context was living in community. Being friends and family with others. I love this verse because it shows the importance of being in relationships with others without implying deficiency. Iron is iron, regardless of other iron being around: a sword, a shield, a knife, a spear. Whatever tool or instrument you are, YOU are YOU, whole and complete, just as you are. The other iron--the partner, friend, family member, community--they make you better than you were before, but don't complete you. Yes, we all have tendencies and personality traits in any number of psychologically and emotionally measurable rubrics, but we don't have to wait around for the right people to come around to balance us out. We can see and know ourselves and balance ourselves out. This way, we're giving our communities, our partners, our friends and family even more of the good in ourselves--we aren't expecting others to be what we need them to be in order to be what we are. So take a deep breath, drink in peace in the knowledge that you, all by yourself, are whole, complete, and awesome. Good talk. High five!

Psalm 139: 14 "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well."

Letting Go

So I run a pretty fab team of ESL teachers at my high school. We have good times, have lunch together frequently, like going to parties, get pretty good work out of the students. We've got routines. We've got team work. We know each other's strengths and weaknesses.

So when one of my best teachers informed me she was going for a job interview, I felt my heart drop into my kidneys... it was not fun.

I felt extremely torn. On the one hand, she's my friend, she'd fabulous and any institution would be lucky to have her; on the other hand, tears of sadness sprung into my eyes at the thought of her leaving, not to mention all of her skill, experience, and expertise - she would be difficult and expensive to replace.

Let's be honest - I could have been a complete jerk. Threatened her with giving a bad reference. I could have refused to let her take off work with pay. I could have done a lot of things. But part of training and mentoring my team members should mean that one day they go off and run teams of their own, right? Doesn't this simply mean I've done my job well?

The other not-so-small twinge of doubt that also sidled into my mind told me that maybe my image of a happy and whole department was an illusion of my own making - maybe my department wasn't happy and I haven't done a very good job at leading and mentoring them. #shock #horror #dunDunDUN!


So how do I broach that potentially very awkward conversation?

The only way I know how to move forward in situations like this is just to be as honest and genuine as I can be, showing both sides of my mind and be open and candid. I didn't want to use manipulative, emotional pleas. I didn't want to be a tool. I didn't want to worry about our department - people have come and go before and we've moved on, yet I also wanted to make sure she knew how valued she was in our department.

While everything worked out - the interviewers and she decided they didn't want each other - and she also let me know before the interview that she was happy on our team (other family concerns prompted the application), I can't pretend that I'll work with the same team forever. I had to let go of many things to do the right thing - trying to control this situation would have spat on a good team member and definitely broken up the team bond we have.

While I don't want to sound like I'm patting myself on the back, I'm glad I had the integrity and heart to be honest and vulnerable, and in a sense, be weak as the situation transpired. Even if it doesn't turn out the same way in the future and I 'lose' a great team member, knowing that I'm doing right for them personally, professionally, not merely thinking of change as a threat, makes me feel as though I've grown as a leader.

It's sometimes a long, lonely road - leading a fairly high-functioning team in a difficult school - but I love the challenge and I love the ladies I face the challenge with. It's as much my responsibility to do right by them than as to do right by our performance tables.

Ok, good talk, guys! 

I still got it

So today I got home earlier than usual... It's the last day of term and I just wanted to get out of there. Made a pot of tea, got my little nest ready on the couch with some work and a variety of entertainments to procrastinate with... the take out Vietnamese place with the good curry would be open in an hour. Score.

I hear a knock at my door and I see a red jacket and think it's the post man. No... It's the British Red Cross canvassing my neighborhood. It's all good. I donate to the BRC--they do fabulous work. I figure I'll have a short chat, and get back to my tea and books. He starts his spiel and asks my name and when I answer, his face lights up... I'm American. He's delighted. He energetically tells me about how much he wants to live in America, how much he loved NYC, what he's studying, interspersing his exclamations with questions--peppering me with details about where I'm from, where I work, why I'm here, etc. etc. We're never going to get to the BRC, I think, but I didn't mind. He was sweet and adorable. Indian. And he's from the neighborhood I lived in a few years ago, so we chat about the local park, the good and bad streets, etc. It's nice. At the end of our 45 min conversation, he wanted to give me a hug... I held out my hand for a handshake, but he pulled me in anyway. It wasn't creepy--he was just sweet.

In a way it was so weird, but in a nice way. I'm not really used to being "a woman" I guess. Most of the guys I encounter don't seem at all interested in the fact that I'm a girl. At work, I try not to be too much of a woman to my 15 year old students for obvious reasons, co-workers are married or, co-workers (obvs, but yeh), friends are either just that--friends, or married...

It's been a while since I've gotten chatted up/asked out and especially at the convenience of my own home--hell, in my pjs! He was just shy of asking me out, saying he'd hopefully see me around. I don't think this means he's going to stalk my house, I think it was just wishful thinking, but it was nice to have someone look at me like I'm beautiful and be so excited to know me. It gives me hope that I will one day meet that special someone without having to resort to some sort of internet match making service which I defiantly ignore. :)

Hot damn! I still got it!

Poets' Corner

Today I took a field trip to Westminster Abbey and we toured the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. There were poppies everywhere, gold gilt out the ying-yang, and sweet, old marshalls in robes. It was darling and traditional and just a little bit chilly, the way it always is in a stone building.

But tucked away in the northern corner is Poets' Corner, where there are the tombs and memorials to many amazing English writers from Geoffrey Chaucer to Ted Hughes and many in between. I had a moment there, reading the memorial names of many beloved writers all together in one hallowed space. Most of the students only knew a few names... they didn't even see the Bronte's, the didn't know Tennyson or Keats or Chaucer, and it made me so unbearably sad.

I love teaching English to my kids... but it's almost like teaching them about these amazing people... the stories, the history, the culture, the politics, the biography... and I felt very sad that they didn't know these quirky and solemn and sarcastic individuals as I'd come to know them from a lifetime of reading.

I also felt really sad walking into Poets' Corner. I've been writing since I was about 10 years old and I've yet to really refine my craft or focus my energy or contribute to this body of work that I've been in love with my entire life. Will I be the teacher who couldn't do it... I can't write, so I'll teach? I can't read, so I'll teach? I love teaching and I know there is a certain art to it, but I love the art of reading and writing as well and there just seems to be so much I don't get to teach the younguns I'm charged with. There's so much they won't get to learn about literature, reading, writing... so many worlds they'll miss out on, characters they won't meet, battles they won't experience... not merely because I'm not taking them there, but because so few read outside of class.

::sigh:: 

I always fall for the wrong guy: Part 4 - the romantic/awkward guy

I read Anna Karenina 7 years ago when I was a substitute teacher at my old high school. One of my vice principals kept trying to convince me that she got abducted by aliens at the end of the book...

But seriously, this may be one of my favorite books ever, but the story of Anna isn't, and her descent into despair isn't.What rivets me so, it's Levin out on his farm scything the hay with the tenant farmers and becoming himself.

Levin is awkward in society. He needs wide open spaces. The stuffy, cluttered drawing rooms of Moscow make him feel penned in. He gets clumsy and feels anxious and hates the tight-fitting suits and always spills soup on his coat--he's that guy. But out in the fields with his scythe and the fresh air, he has space to be the man he is. He isn't clumsy, but almost primal. I can see him shirtless on the fields for hours, days, with the graceful motion of his strong shoulders feeling the rhythm of the land around him. Levin doesn't care for lace and frills, but he does care about purity--he has a pure, unadulterated heart, and he will protect and love those he cares for.

You see, Levin is one of the 4 main men in Anna Karenina. We're meant to really like Vronsky... the hottie who's athletic, rich, and a total womanizer. Of course he wants Anna, who he can't have.

The most telling moment about Vronsky in Anna K, is when he races his beautiful horse Frou-Frou and she crashes so that she breaks her spine. He loved her more than almost anything in life, and he rode her into death and shot her in the head without shedding a tear. I can't even talk about all the symbolism or the motifs of running too hard, or going till you absolutely break. There is something magnificently selfish and soulless in his beautiful eyes which become more and more vacant as the film goes on. Anna herself veils herself more and more till she is almost always in darkness at the end of the film.

Alexei also represents the organised man who is so good that he's incredibly boring most of the time and it will take a very special women to appreciate him the right way. Alexei's stoic, "Christ-like" and yet some how inhuman forgiveness of Anna seemed defiant and unmasculine. How he can be such a champion in the courtroom and a spineless martyr in the bedroom is beyond me.

Alexei's sterile, by-the-book love fails in the end. Vronsky's fire storm of love burns he and Anna to the ground. And don't even get me started on Oblonsky...

I know Levin starts out as the underdog of Anna K, but he's really this unsung romantic hero. He becomes himself out on the fields, he goes back for what he wants, and is ready to love and protect it. He knows who he is and what he offers and to whom he's offering it. Levin is a real man emotionally, physically, even if he doesn't have the best clothes and throw the fanciest dinners.

Which brings me to the my favorite scene of the BOOK, not the movie... where they are truffle hunting and he proposes! Ok... the theatricality of life in the city and the eyes on you and your marriage--Tom Stoppard totally hits the nail on the head when he adds in the meta-theatre of the stages throughout the movie. Levin wants to live outside of all that in the countryside--he doesn't want his entire life and marriage to be a spectacle, but to live simply and genuinely, not worrying about appearances, but the heart.

He needs Katia to be ok with this, so she visits his farm with her family before he proposes. She gives him her heart genuinely and lives in a heart to heart relationship with him. Not for sex, not for appearances, not to be taken care of... for true love. So yes, out of the rich, the lusty, the athletic, the famous, the hardworking, men in Anna K... I fell for the awkward romantic guy because he makes his life worth sharing with someone and then gives her his real heart and self cause I am that girl.

Of all the men I meet, the ones I respect the most are genuine, but the ones I love give their hearts, even if they do it awkwardly.

Sing O Barren Woman

Sing, O barren one who did not bear;
burst into song and shout,
you who have not been in labour!
For the children of the desolate woman will be more
than the children of her that is married, says the Lord. Isaiah 54:1 

As a single woman who believes in sex only during marriage, having my own children may never happen for me. Honestly, I don't mind not being married, I'm really independent. But I'd love to have those relationships... wife, mother, which are going to be difficult.

Western society has put tons of emphasis on sex. I feel like sex and gender and roles and everything just bombard me everyday. Not having sex somehow makes me less of an adult. Whatevs...

But in biblical times, in those cultures, sex was a means to have children. Being barren, not having children was a woman's true disgrace. I know some women with fertility issues struggle with this, but that's not what this post is about really. Yes, because of my beliefs I may never be able to have my own children. But there's hope for me. I do not have to  be desolate even if I don't have my own children...


Nowadays, single women of certain means have the opportunity to adopt children... lucky me. I have always wanted to adopt and maybe one day that will happen for me. But even this isn't necessarily what Isaiah was talking about in this verse. He's talking about spiritual children.

If I don't get the blessing of a family and my own children, I am still full of love. I can spread that motherly, sisterly love all over my friends' children and my siblings' children, and the children I teach, and kids I meet, and people I meet.

do not hold back; lengthen your cords
and strengthen your stakes.
For you will spread out to the right and to the left,
and your descendants will possess the nations
and will settle the desolate towns.
Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed;
do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace;
for you will forget the shame of your youth,
and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more.
For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name;
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
For the Lord has called you (2-6)

I believe Isaiah is talking about spiritual influence... mentoring... counselling... teaching. As Donald Miller said, "If someone loves us... they will make us who we are." And I get to do that with a lot of people. I get to love them with God's love, with crazy, hyper, spazzy Jenny-love oozing with the Holy Spirit.

So let's take a step back and make this bigger... what if this passage isn't just about women, or single women, or barren women, but about the church? The section header reads it's "God's everlasting covenant of peace." 

Ok, so besides single women now having meaning in society, God is going to take us (the church/ men & women) from a state of what was then considered "uselessness" and give us meaning and purpose. I'm sure we've all felt that there were times where we could be more "successful" or "productive" or "popular" if we smudged the rules a bit. We've felt the need to perform. We've looked for loopholes. I'm sure plenty of women in Bible times were saying "Well... I probably COULD have a baby if I just had sex..." One of Lot's daughters even got him drunk and slept with him to get pregnant! 

"I'll be faster if I just use some of those steroids." 

"I could get extra time if I fake sickness." 

"One little fib won't hurt anyone." 

"I could pretend it came broken and send it back." 

Now, to go even FURTHER... in the New Testament, Paul uses this section to talk about freedom we have in Christ and he makes it an allegory by talking about Hagar and Sarah. Every Jew would know that Hagar was Sarah's hand-maiden, and Sarah was Abraham's barren wife who was pretty old. God had promised Abraham that he would father more children than the stars in the sky... Sarah got tired of being made fun of and sent her maid in to get pregnant... 

God keeps His promises, so two babies were born: a free son (Isaac) and a slave son (Ishmael). One born of the flesh... one of the Spirit--the promise of God. One child was a miracle, the other natural. 

We are miracles... we are born of God's Spirit, and when we love on each other, we spread that Spirit around, creating domino effect "descendants" of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and my least-favorite FOTS, long-suffering. 

So we're children of Sarah... the barren woman. Sometimes I'm also Sarah, the woman who has to have God smack me around cause I start to lose faith. I can rejoice, on a spiritual and personal level in these parallel scriptures because I am free and I can live in freedom. I don't have to give into these little urges to perform, to compete with others, to be afraid of their cultural definitions of disgrace. 

I also can know that if I don't ever get married or have children, my life won't be purposeless. I am not useless if my womb is unused. Women are so much more than just human incubators. God knew this long before human rights acts and suffragette movements. He knew it even when women were considered property, and He's tried to get men and women to love and belong to each other as one from the beginning , but let's not get into male/female relationships... not in this post. No. 

No. These passages show me that God sees me and loves me as I am. Not only if I fulfil certain prerequisites to be worthy or useful or successful like having babies in wedlock (such a strange word). He will make my life full of rich purpose and meaning, if only I will hand over to him my deepest fears and insecurities... if I can sing out of my barrenness, He will fill my empty womb and my tent with descendants. So strike up the band and turn the mic up because He's put a lot of love in me and I'm ready to go. Amen. 

Brave: Post Disney Families

Finally there is a film where the father is not an idiot, dead or abusive... Finally there is a film where the princess is NOT MARRIED at the end. Finally there is a film where the main story line is not between the princess and a prince, but between a Mother and her Daughter.

In today's world, we need more movies about family and not about romance. Romance doesn't build families... romance initiates... communication builds families, understanding builds families, honesty builds families, letting go of pride builds families... love builds families.

For real relationships to happen, for real love to form... we have to be Brave. Amen.  

Miss Piggy has the Right Idea: Body Image and Complements

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.” ~ Miss Piggy

I'm not gonna lie... loving the shape I'm in is sometimes difficult. It's easy to think it's easier for someone else... but really, no one's body or life is perfect. I've got a big bum... she get's in the way... she makes it impossible for me to wear pencil skirts, I knock things over with her, skinny jeans are a challenge cause that pooch thing in the back happens... but... I must say... my waist is usually kickin! Women with love handles envy my waist... and usually, I envy their thighs... but if I had their thighs on the end of this butt, it would look even more weird... so... my bum and I learn to love each other. 

I love that no matter how much I run or do squats and lunges, she will get harder, but not smaller... 

I love that I can salsa like a latina because I got junk in my trunk... 

I love that a whole slew of music has been dedicated to women with bums: Fat Bottomed Girls, Shake your Booty, Bootylicious, Baby Got Back, My Humps, Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, etc. etc. 

I love that my shoulder bag bumps my bum to the rhythm of my ipod and I can watch men watching my bag bump, bump, bumping along the sidewalk... 

Body image is difficult because it's not just your body, but how you feel about your body... 

This disturbing and yet helpful article shows me that other women care about this... 

One thing Zooey Deschanel always goes on about is complimenting other girls... not seeing each other as competition, but as loving each other and respecting each other. And I completely agree... 

I try to compliment the women I work with a few times a week. Not in an annoying, fake way... but I actually try to open my eyes and notice when they have new jewellery or have cut their hair or are wearing new shoes or something. I try to remember their birthdays and what things make them uncomfortable and how they take their coffee and food allergies... 

I think if we all took a step back and ignored the magazines and just looked at each other... really looked at each other... things might be different. It's like when people who have known me for ages finally notice that I have green eyes... I just think "Where have you been looking for the past year or so?" 

One thing the article really made me worry about was the idea of being sexy... the concept that you have to look like Kim Kardashian to be sexy... or that men won't want you... that's ridiculous... men watch my bump bump bump on the way home from the gym in sweats... men watch my bump bump bump in jeans and flip flops laden with groceries... men watch the sway of my knee-length skirt as I run for the bus... Sexy doesn't have to be all boobs out and pouty lips and eye-liner... sexiness can be knowing who you are, your confidence, your self love, and knowing where you're going. Sexiness is looking people in the eye, meaning what you say, and standing your ground... for men too... 

Don't get me wrong, I want to be healthy and take care of myself... but I think that going to the gym and taking some classes and heading out for a run is a bit different than sculpting my thighs so I can look like Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider movies... (which, btw, I would LOVE to have her thighs)... but who has the time for that!? 

I love it when celebs like Gwen Stefani and Angelina come out and admit how friggin hard they work to keep their bodies as tough and solid as they are... Sorry girls, but I don't have the time or money for 4 hour training sessions...

I would hate for one of my main ambitions in life to have someone else's muscular thighs... which... btw, she totes knows about herself, flashing them off... 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Francis Chan is a genius: “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.” 

Does it matter if I cannot rock a pencil skirt? Nope... I can rock those adorable swing skirts! 

Does it matter if I knock stuff over with my butt on a semi-regular basis? Only for the comedic relief... 

One thing I think does matter is encouraging and loving each other... it builds trust and community. It brightens someone's day. It shows you care and they matter. 

So... go out and notice something positive and complement someone ;) It'll make you sexy... 

Why we love...

I read a lot of books. I read because I almost feel more alive inside these proxy worlds than in my own sometimes. I read because I feel these characters. I read because I can travel and see and smell and learn. I read because wisdom comes to me, from the conversations with the characters... I read because I see myself in these people, and I see patterns and types and life. I read so I can live better and so that I can know myself.

I've been reading Much Ado About Nothing, which is a play I didn't much like a while ago... but this time around I've been seeing myself in Beatrice, and Beatrice in me.

BEATRICE: Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.
LEONATO: You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
BEATRICE: What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than aman, I am not for him. 

I've been thinking of why we love... why we want love, why we crave love, and why we'd turn it away. Part of the reason the deception worked in Much Ado... the deception that brought Beatrice and Benedick together, is that they saw only parts of themselves clearly... they saw their pride, but not that others saw it. They thought their derisive humor hid their hearts... and... so often, I do the same... I tell jokes about what causes my heart the most ache. 


I've also read Till we have faces by CS Lewis (btw, did anyone else know he wrote fiction for adults?!)... and the dilemma with love... I have been feeling it so intensely lately. Do we love so that we are loved? Do we love so that we are known? Or do we love to give selflessly with the ability to be reviled, disobeyed, rejected and spurned... and still love?  


So... Imma add a disclaimer right here that this post is very difficult to write and very personal and yet, there is this burning within me to write it. 


It is very difficult to live in London far away from my family. If life was a scattergraph, I would be the dot in the center, and my family is clustered quite far from me... I feel so separate and lonely... as tho I would always be alone. As if no one owed me their love as family does... And so I am the anomaly on the scatter graph, and the line of best fit doesn't touch me or even come near. 

God, in his words to me, often says to love, love, love selflessly and often. And I feel awkward, not wanting to love and serve so that it isn't awkward (I always feel awkward... like a bit of Luna Lovegood lives in me), and yet, God says it will not be awkward because He's made me silly and whimsy and sturdy and a bit loud and a bit quiet and a bit of a mess and a bit particular and it all blends together into a squishy mess of Jenny love which blesses people (I hope). And 90-95% of my love is that I just see such awesomeness in people and my heart overflows to them... and 5-10% is that fear. The fear that if I need something, I need to build up good will with people so that when it's my turn, they will love me. You see, somewhere, tho my love is freely given, I insult others by assuming they will not so freely love. I assume I will have to earn it, and pay it back, and so sum up love into accounts, tho I am free enough with my own bank. 

That fear, that loneliness, tho I'm ashamed to say it, has revealed itself in the idea that if I had a bf or a husband, I would have a family... I would be ok, because someone would have to love me. 

It's so incredibly untrue and it's so selfish. I've known enough married people to know they have worries new and plenty, and life, tho some things become simpler, others become much more difficult. I know that we don't love so that we have security, emotional or otherwise... 

God whispers in my ear to leave my heart open so love may find me, to not have the attitude that I do not need man, but that, at the same time, I don't need man. I don't need him, yet the attitude of it is unbecoming... God is ever all I need, He provides all my security, emotional and otherwise, He fills me with the love I pour out, yet, my heart must be open to receive love as well as give it. 

And I am so bad at receiving love... I don't know what to do or say... It's like deep down inside me somewhere, I have believed the lie that I am unlovable... that I can expect friendliness, but not friendship, helpfulness, but not devotion, handshakes, but not embraces... I have to build up the good will... I have to serve, I have to give, I have to love, love, love... 

And I'm a mess... I don't love and offer and give because I think so highly of myself... No... 

Friday night, at Pentecost, I had a vision... I was a little girl in a pink dress, with pink bows and I stood on a great precipice. (Pink = my feminism (which, is something I'm also trying to learn)). All around me were cliffs and the sky was full of the presence of God in the dark hills... Jesus stood with me, and in my hand was a small communion candle. It was a tiny speck in the bleak darkness, the wind whipping around me and tugging at my skirts... yet I held my light up to Jesus, out to the presence of God in the holy dark. It was a speck, but I held it alight because I somehow felt I had to. It wasn't much, but I stood on my tip toes... my white shoes scratching on the rough rocks... the wind whipped at my candle, but it didn't go out... it stayed lit and at the horizon far off over the hills the first rays of a dawn were erupting from the darkness... not even the rays but the first glow when the sky begins to seem orange. 

There is never anyone else there... just Jesus and myself and the holy darkness... I'm not shining it for anyone but Jesus... yet somehow I have to keep shining it. Love is such a strange thing in that way... the idea that we're doing something for Jesus who is the source of our love, the motive for our love and who brims us over with love, and that we love the people around us, our friends and family because we see lovable things all over their lives. Love is this morphous thing of for us and in us and for them and in them and because of them and us and God... it never has one motive... it's messy and manic and even in the softest sigh of contentment with our beloved, we can feel 10,000 things before we've drawn breath again. 

So in all of this mess, my whole world has been changed... the idea of loving because He first love us... it's exploded, in a good way. The love He pours into me, it seems the entire impetus for all life and feeling, yet it is free, so it leaves space for fear and the question... will I be loved? It isn't only one way, but it's leaving space to receive... it's always pouring out, but always taking in as well... 

Colossians says "perfect love casts out fear"... and so I believe it does... but it leaves room so that it could exist, and then God fills it up with his love. 

Which brings me back to Beatrice... how she is so in me... this Beatrice, who seems so light hearted, and so full of love and feeling... so full of passion. She cannot believe that a man exists who could suit her... she sees  all that she offers, and she sees all her inadequacies... She sees what an utter mess she is, what a mess love is... She sees and she is afraid... so she loves Hero and blesses Leonato and her family, yet never lets there be any space for reciprocity. She thinks no one could love her, so she stops up the hole with jokes... Oh Beatrice, I have had your pride and your fear and your despair in my heart--God forgive me. I have laughed it off... but today I cannot. Today, I cried of the broken heart I've been trying to hide. Broken from the lies that have been building up there... the lies that I cannot and will never be loved. 

Oh that I would open my eyes and see the love that is already before me... I am already secure. I am already fiercely loved. I am furiously blessed. And I will practice leaving that space open in my heart to receive others with the same quiet, happy grace that I would have them receive my fumbling, silly offering... the tiny spark of candle in the holy dark. 

Careless with Myself

"You gotta be kind to yourself" She & Him 

I'm generally a careful person, but I'm also somewhat clumsy--I forget people's names, I bump into things and don't notice and get myself covered with bruises. I'm gracious but forgetful at times. So along those lines, about 5 weeks ago I got a pedicure and my feet felt AWESOME. They were a fabulous shade of orange and then I sort of forgot about them... for a month. So, the other day, I noticed that one of my toenails has split about halfway across my big toe and I have no idea how I've done this. I've stubbed my toes a fair few times on the uneven London pavement, and I haven't trimmed them, so I get holes in my socks, leaving my poor toes unprotected, but I never noticed any damage or felt any real pain...

I've been careless.

And I can't help but feel that this is how we sometimes go through life. We spend money or time or both, on ourself--sorting some problem, looking after ourself, but then, in our glory, we forget or get busy and things happen and we're careless and then, before you know it, body parts start to crack or go missing...

Maybe not.

But we probably need to take time out to tend to ourselves more than once a month (or less).

My housemate and her friend recently were talking about these courses where people learn team building and communication. One woman on the course remarked

"I have a deep respect for religious people because whether you call it prayer or meditation or reflection, they take time out to do this regularly and really tend to themselves. I never want to think about my emotions. I just get on with it." 

In a world where your therapist might know more about you than your housemate, facebook chat, and "virtual" events which happen online turn into real memories, people seem to be connected superficially to everyone--even themselves.

Especially in work environments, it's easy to look down on anyone who's finding something difficult. The attitude is that you should be able to cope, or you'll be replaced or put on a training course. But, there really isn't a training course for life or with dealing with your own emotions... you just have to "get on with it"... and so a lot of people do, ignoring some of the deepest parts of themselves.

A lot of studies show that people aren't even as close with their own families and tend to move away, or not have people to talk issues over with or work things out with. (Ah, I usually have links to studies, but alas, I can't find the NYTimes/Guardian articles).  Loneliness is rampant... and I wonder, how many of us are walking around with damaged toenails, or worse, damaged hearts and souls?

Christian writer, Donald Miller, in his book Searching for God Knows What, comments that after the fall, we humans are like the children of Chernobyl, we grew up deformed and in excruciating pain, but we don't know anything else. We don't know what we could be, we just see glimpses here and there of perfection.

While we're here, I do want to distinguish some things from the concept of "caring" for yourself. Spending money on yourself is not necessarily caring for yourself. Thinking about yourself a lot is not necessarily caring for yourself. Having good self esteem is not necessarily caring for yourself. Doing popular things or being popular is not necessarily caring for yourself.

I've been getting the feeling lately that things that are beautiful have been mistaken for things that are true, and that things that are popular are being mistaken for things that are right. And yet, there is a huge difference between what is favored by the most people and what is good for the most people, and even utilitarianism has its boundaries of usefulness and justice.

In a world that seems nonstop, I tend to always feel like I'm missing out... either on my reading and writing, or on meeting up with friends, or speaking to my family... on going to the gym or going for long runs or enjoying a cup of coffee (instead of downing one for the caffeine). Taking time for one thing inevitably feels like losing time on a score of other things. It's just no way to live--always feeling frantic and rushed and like I should be doing more and managing more and go, go going.

So in conventional 90s wisdom, I would like to be the roadrunner and not Wile Coyote... moving with grace, purpose and agility to a specific destination, and not struggling with poorly laid plans that leave me with an anvil or piano on my head, or falling off a cliff.

So I gave up coffee for what?: Post Lent Reflections

Web woven by Spider on Caffeine

So it's been nearly a week since Easter, and I may have consumed 2-5 coffees/caffeinated drinks each day since Easter Sunday.

I thought about maybe cutting down or trying to make my fast semi-permanent, but road trips make that difficult.

Tea and coffee is cheap and often free at hostels, and it goes down smooth, does the trick, especially when it's cold and damp, like in Scotland.

Glen Coe, The Highlands, Scotland, UK 

So other than the knowledge that I can indeed fast from caffeine, what did I gain? What did Easter hold for me?

Easter held some amazing music. While Christmas Carols tend to be the most loved songs, I just revel in the beautiful, rejuvenating music of Easter. The lyrics and melodies just feed me, and I've been singing harmonies arranged by Huw White all week. The harmonies to Tim Hughes "Sing Alleluia" stuck with me wandering the fields of Scotland. The lyrics of "In Christ Alone" followed me through the glens and lochs and bens...

Easter is a reminder that all is not what it seems... a reminder of the promise that all will be made new. In a world where things that came out last week are considered old, it's really easy to miss the heavenly perspective on earthly time. It's easy to be shallow and feel old cause I'm not 22 anymore, or feel frumpy because my clothes aren't brand new, or something like that. It's easy to look at my modest teaching career and feel unimportant, or to look at the accomplishments of those around me and feel empty...

But things aren't always what they seem. As I've said before, there are invisible things... spiritual things happening all the time. Spiritual beings making choices, taking action. There are spiritual acts, movements, motions in us and all around us, and we wittingly or no, take part in these actions. So does Jesus.

Jesus saw faith in followers the world rejected. Jesus' spirit couldn't be held by death in the tomb. He saw men and women and girls alive where we saw death. He saw health where others saw illness, disease and deformation.

Even in my humble teaching post, I pray and Jesus tells me not to leave... that I can't know what He's doing because I'm there... maybe I'll never know.

Even in this silly blog with my silly words. Words I get scared to write because someone may someday throw them back in my face. Words I want to edit because someone might read them. Words which aren't judged by the numbers of followers I have or blog views I get (tho those stats are interesting,...)... No, I need to write because when I  pray, God says to write... to write humbly and honestly and without apology. So I try... cause who knows where they will go or what invisible things they will inspire?

I'm reading The Secret Garden again... and Mary keeps wandering around trying to figure out if her garden is dead. But she tends it for a few weeks before she finally gets Ben Weatherstaff and Dickon to tell her it's alive. Weeks. I would like to think that if I came to a dead garden I would be so faithful, but after a few hours of pulling weeds, I'd probably give it up for dead and come back in a month to see if it worked, but no. Mary comes back everyday. She explores and finds out every detail and every nook.

She doesn't know the invisible things are there, and they are changing her... but her reward is great.

I hope that I can develop the faithfulness of Contrary Mary in The Secret Garden... that my work, however humble, would change me, so that when spring does come, there are beautiful flowers in my garden (wow that sounds SO cheesy, but I'm leaving it here). Not like treasure in heaven or anything, but the reward for her toil, the garden, was the reward for Mary... She didn't get huge houses or money or fame or anything out of her toil (not yet anyway),... she got the gorgeous flowers to enjoy.

I'm trying to give it up, but there's a part of me that wants to be right all the time, and I'm slowly learning that a lot of the time, there aren't completely right or wrong answers, but perspectives and emotions and ideas and invisible things that happen because of words and ideas and thoughts and how we think them and when and where get thrown out into the universe causing their own version of chaos.

I don't want to worry about how I stack up against other people, but what I can offer them and how I can love them better. Somehow, not drinking coffee has helped me learn this about myself... but how, I don't know... it's just one of those invisible things that got thrown out into the universe in my crazed caffeine craving fits, I suppose. 

Lent Reflections: Calling

"By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet to the way of peace." Luke 1: 78-79 

John the Baptist... he was a complicated man... he like eating locust and wearing animal skins, he didn't drink, and he spent most of his time looking quite wild and baptising people by rivers. His parents were very old, and he didn't have any brothers or sisters, so, all in all, he became the very peculiar only child, by Jerusalem's standards.

Yet time and again friends and family will get words of knowledge for me about this man or other prophets like Jeremiah (my mom), and Ezekiel (oooohhh dear).

So many friends I know WISH they had a calling... they don't feel guided into things, they enjoy stuff maybe, and I don't know how to talk to them about vocation since they didn't go to Messiah College and have it ingrained into them... it's difficult stuff how some people just get jobs in the village fishing with their fathers and Jesus just comes and asks them to come with him, and others get prophesies about their births and their parent's get strict rules about their names and they feel led into things their entire lives.

But the thing about being the "dawn on high" to "give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death," is that you have to go sit in the darkness. And you have to talk to those who are in the shadow of death, and you have to realize that without Jesus in your life, you are those people... sometimes you are even with him...

One of my very particular character traits is that sometimes I can be really stubborn. Usually I'm pretty go-with-the-flow, but sometimes there is something I will dig my heels in about and never, ever let it go...

When I was a little girl, probably 2-3 years old, my parents wanted me to eat the vegetables at dinner and I didn't want to. So after being threatened and begged, my dad, very authoritatively, says "Eat your vegetables or you get a spanking." In my small child brain I weighed the costs/benefits of eating these vegetables and quietly got down from the table, walked down the hallway and got my dad's belt from the closet and brought it to him saying "Daddy please beat me."

I often wonder if Ezekiel's parents have similar stories... Ezekiel 3:7-9
"The house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me; because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house." 

If that isn't a gifting, then I don't know what is... and knowing that God is giving me a similar gifting... well sometimes it feels like a blessing in a curse. It also feels like something I should put on a dating website or a resume (Can be incredibly stubborn at times...) Lol. Stubbornness or as some call it faithfulness or as others call it stick-with-it-ness is not always considered a virtue. In fact, even Stephen Dubner on Freakonomics talks about how sometimes it better to "fail fast" or "quit early" instead of getting rigged in and going down with the ship slowly but surely (The Upside of Quitting). 

Still, in any community, someone needs to be the foil... someone needs to challenge the status quo and stubbornly drive things in a different direction when needed, even if it's uncomfortable or annoying. Sometimes, saying the truth makes you unpopular... as John the Baptist knows... but that's a prophet's calling, for better or for worse, to say what God says... and so often, what God says can be exactly what we don't want to hear or do or say... 

My current job is often challenging and often I think "yep, time to pack it in..." But I know the lives of young people are being changed. I know futures are brighter. I know that things are bit by bit shining brighter, like dawn might be coming (or maybe just some bright stars)... I know that even if I don't feel like a bright star or a lamp, I probably am one and when God says to stay that I have to dig my heels in and stay, even tho I want to bolt. 

When I think about teaching at a posh grammar school where there are minimal behavior problems... I always imagine Welton Academy in The Dead Poet's Society where tho everything seems to be in order, boys are dying (on the inside and out). I know that grammar schools are probably lovely places to work, but in my heart, I love working with slightly more disadvantaged communities and schools. It is a blessing and a curse. 

I guess that if God has made me to be similar to the skin-wearing, locust-eating teetotaller, John, then I can handle it, or the destruction-prophesying Ezekiel, then I can handle that too... 

Whether you feel like you just float along or not, whether you feel like you were made to do something or not, God's given us each gifts, and some of these gifts may not seem like gifts all the time until we're in situations where we need to use them, and then we shine, whether we think we do or not.  

Lent Reflections: Not My Will...

"A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life." - Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Elliot

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.  - Martin Luther King, Jr.

‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.’ - Jesus,  Luke 22:42

We are a goal-oriented culture. Everywhere in England I hear about targets, goals, milestones... even facebook now has a timeline with different major events in our lives. Much of it is very productive and also reminds me of the book Baby Steps in What About Bob?  But I can't help but think that life is more than just reaching small targets toward a projected success. Real life involves risk, faith, determination, struggle, and in many cases, miracles.

But from more and more people, I'm hearing the idea that if I follow God, He'll give me the desires of my heart, which, I'm starting to wonder about.

You see, God says He will bless us, but He doesn't say it will be with that thing we want... in fact, sometimes I believe He'll deliberately take us away from that thing we want, not because He's mean, but because we want it more than we want Him, and He is a jealous God.

That idea makes him sound petty and selfish, but seriously, it doesn't make sense to want created things more than to want to be in relationship with the Creator.

This idea of God blessing my life is particularly thrown at me in regards to getting married. Marriage seems to be the institution that we expect to just happen to us one day... it's part of how we think life goes, and I'm sure marriage is a great opportunity, with blessings and challenges. But because marriage is something everyone expects to happen to them at some point.... I think, so many people get frustrated when it's not happening in the manner or time frame that they would prefer.

But does God really promise this for us? Does He promise us anything in particular? And if He has (so we think) can He change those plans for us?

I think sometimes God tells us things to help us move forward with attitudes and beliefs, to heal parts of our hearts and draw us into and out of things... but then, things change, and we have to keep listening to God, in real time, to keep up with His will for our lives.

God and I have been having a little bit of a celebrity death match regarding marriage for a few years and parts have been very hard. After a few very intense relationships, I was hurt, deeply, and He's been moving in and healing my heart for a long time. I was fed up and bitter. I didn't want anything to do with guys. As far as I was concerned, I was better off with God, and I could be single forever, and never be hurt again.

At that moment, I wasn't thinking about serving God with my life, but protecting myself... and it took a lot of wrestling for God to convince me to open my heart up, and for the past few years, to keep it open.

Part of that was convincing me that one day I would be married. I hoped for it. I waited expectedly, like in Hebrews... I sang like Queen "Can anybody find me somebody to love?!" And through this, God showed me that 1. I was loveable, and 2. to love myself...

There is nothing quite so good and becoming more of yourself. Of having someone who knows you well, who loves you perfectly show you how lovely you are, how He loves your quirks, how He's made you with them on purpose, and convincing you to love them yourself. You start to own yourself, and grow in confidence, and out of that, it becomes so easy to love others, to serve, to give, because you have in abundance.

But recently, the question has come up,... "If I don't bring you a partner, will you still follow me? If you can serve me better single, will you do it?" And this has been a hard question to wrestle with, I'm not going to lie, but one that I feel confident in saying yes to...

Because, I want to serve God no matter what, He is the one thing I strive for, He is the thing I will die for... He's given me passions for women's rights, for world education, for counselling and promoting real-life community... I will work unflaggingly for these things in His will, single, for my entire life.

And the quiet voice deep inside me says that if I do, my life will be amazing.

That's not to say that I can't serve God with a partner or have an amazing life with one... that's not the issue... the issue is, would I be willing to give it up if He asked me to? The issue is one in my heart of which is more important. If I will say "Not my will..." like Jesus.

Because God's will, God's love is a transforming love... It's not to say that I want something and God will keep me from it, but He will come in and transform my heart so the desires of my heart are His desires.

When I first went to college, I didn't want to be a teacher, but my passion for education ignited as I tutored students in writing and now looking back, I can see how He's been preparing me to be a teacher for a long time. He's had stories and novels inside me since I was a child, and now they're coming out into manuscripts.

Lent is a great time to ponder and meditate on these big questions, when we ponder with Jesus, when we contemplate His temptations, when we walk through a fast with him... and I think, the one thing that I dedicate my life to won't be finding a partner, but following God and loving as many people as He puts around me.

That isn't to say there aren't things I want or goals I have. Paying off my school loans will be awesome. Doing some more travelling. Learning a language fluently. Getting an MA in Literature and Psychology. Publishing a novel.

I have a fair few projects I'm working on... but these pale in comparison to loving the people God's placed around me: my friends and family, my church community, my work colleagues, my students, strangers in my path throughout the day...

Because at the end of the day, it's all about loving and serving others. I can publish novels, but it won't make me happy unless those stories touch and transform the hearts of my readers. I can study all I like, but unless I'm serving others and loving them into better people, it's useless. I can speak 10 languages, but unless I communicate with someone, what's the point?

So this Lent, I'm going to try to rest into these conversations with God... not fighting, assuming He's going to make my life miserable, but sinking into the peace that He will bring me abundant life, and that my hope, my faith is in Him, "for I am dead and my life is hid with Christ in God." Colossians 3:3

"Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.... Take my love, my Lord, I pour, at your feet it's treasure store. Take myself and I will be, ever only all for thee." - Frances Havergal 

Mirror Mirror on the Wall...

As Miller says, "pretty much every picture in a magazine or ad is airbrushed . . . I don't think the public understands how much smoke and mirrors are involved in making women look like that."

 It's been about a year since my "retraining" post ... a lot has happened. A lot of conversations, a lot of gym time, a lot of articles on health and dieting and eating healthy read...

Yet sometimes I feel right back where I started, staring in the mirror, unhappy with myself.

One thing that I think has seeped into my brain is this idea of comparing myself to everyone else around me. It's as if health and fitness (or some other point of comparison) is on a giant grid and I am on one point. If I can see where everyone else is on the grid, I can tell which direction I want to move in.

Donald Miller talks about the lifeboat theory... always comparing one's self to others "well, I may be... but at least I'm not..." "I'll get thrown out of the lifeboat after that guy..."

Let's just say, one shouldn't wander through life wondering who is going to displace you next.

I've been having conversations with a few of my guy friends... about women and the media... about knowing ourselves... about... life.

A few guys have actually said it would be great if airbrushed or altered photos of women came with a label... so they could just tell themselves that those images aren't real.

I must say, it makes sense in my mind... it didn't bother me at first, but after thinking about it... I came to realize how much of a problem we could potentially have on our hands... (see the quote at the top from this Guardian article.)

A few years ago, most of my guy friends would say they hated stick skinny women, in Funny Girl, Barbara Streisand's character is actually rejected from showbiz for being too skinny... shapely, curvy women were attractive and healthy.

It's like, these images of "altered" women are taking over, making, in my opinion, both men and women dissatisfied with natural women's bodies (and probably men's too... but... let's just stick to women for now).

Since 1973, psychologists have found that women who suffer from anorexia actually SEE and PERCEIVE their bodies as being bigger than they really are. If a woman's waist is 25 inches, she'll see it as 25% to 50% bigger...

So what does this have to do with me... surely I don't have an eating disorder... no I don't...

In 2011 I went to the gym, but lazily... I didn't want to put on muscle, I didn't want to be bulky, I didn't want to be too strong... now these lines sound crazy to me.

I got this handy lil app called myfitness from the android store... I've been just keeping track of my calories. I wanted to see how much I was eating on a normal day... same as last year, around 1400-1600 cals. Much better than before.

I joined a gym and started taking some classes where I'll make some muscle... be stronger, that is.

Already I can notice my posture is better, I have loads more energy, I smile more, and working to the max, not just a little bit... is just so much more motivating. I'm actually sweating during my workout... I'm having to push myself. 

I even got a trainer to make a few workouts for me... an expert who can tell me what kinds of exercises, how many, how often, how many reps, etc. Instead of just making it up as I go along...

So why am I so unhappy right now?

Even though I'm feeling great, some of my clothes are a bit tight on me... it's probably a number of things, from bloating or just the fact that the muscles build up then the fat burns off... whatever... it could be anything... but my clothes are a bit tight, so I automatically went to "I hate myself" mode.

More than training my body, I need to retrain my mind (and methinks possibly the minds around me) so that they don't just see cellulite or a bit of hips... but that they see a person.

While on any average day I love myself... while I'm learning to admire the curves I've been given (God bless J Lo's and my bum) I also have this annoying gnat inside my head saying "if you're too curvy, guys won't like you"... this gnat has come from too many guys I know talking about skinny women... and I'm hypothesizing that some of that has come from being bombarded with airbrushed women everywhere...

Regardless... I'm going to work on more consistently loving myself with workouts and healthy food. My body's gonna love this!

Em-bod-i-ment

In this world, I feel like there are three kinds of guys... but for the purposes of this post, we'll only discuss two of them: men who can deal with bodies, and men who cannot.

I don't know if having sisters changes things, or being very emotionally intelligent,... I don't know that x-factor which is the game changer, but many men I meet are unwilling to interact with the idea that women have bodies... Real bodies.

Some men can't handle that women have bathroom habits... or that women have to actually take a dump... that we sweat, that we might smell... that we have body hair... nope... it doesn't exist (cover my ears and sing LALALALALA).

What do you think we do in the bathroom? When we're blowing our noses, is that how we get rid of our excretion? And let's not even talk about menstruation...

I come from a family of guys... there are only a few girls in my family other than my mom, and so I've always been used to guy "body" habits. I dealt with all the random bathroom habits of boys, night time habits, and listening to them talking about women, being confused about women, etc...

It all seems quite natural for men to be a bit hairy, to be a bit dirty, etc... But just because it's natural, doesn't mean it's pretty. It's not pretty, it's manly and rugged and attractive...

But I feel many men don't offer the same courtesy to women. If a woman is sporty, or a bit dirty, it's gross. If she has the stomach flu, it's gross... well yes, it's always gross... but it's not MORE gross because it's a woman instead of a man...

Women's bodies are gorgeous... but they've been twisted and shaped and shaved and tucked into something now socially acceptable.

News Flash!: Women have bathroom habits, we have body hair, we get ill, we have cellulite, and all these things make us profoundly human. These things make us beautiful...


The Victorian Era seems to be the most deluded of time periods when it comes to men's knowledge of women. Whispered stories of barren women... doctors came to observe the woman and found out she was still a virgin. Ruskin actually annulled his marriage after 6 years because he didn't know women got body hair...

While I liked clean-shaven men when I was a teenager, and they continue to look very dashing, now as a woman, I like men to be natural... hence, deodorant advertisements who host men with shaved armpits freak me out...

What is so offensive about women's bodies? What is so wrong that they have to be twisted into things that aren't real? Shellacked with makeup, shaved and polished and oiled... As much as I love taking care of my body, I don't want to feel like I'm somehow offensive just because I have a body. As if women are these ethereal beings who don't have real physicality unless they are pleasuring men...

And to these men who are grossed out... I feel for your partners... since you will probably be too busy retching to care for her when she's ill, to be there when she delivers your children, to help care for their small bodies, to take her as she is... instead of pretending she is not... I'll leave you with a little French Feminism...

"Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard. ~ Helene Cixous

So I thought you needed something in your bed...

... so I got you a stuffed animal.

I've never really been a stuffed animal girl. I had a few when I was a little kid... I had a dolphin I almost stole from Sea World when I was 2... but another story for another day.

Other than the dolphin, I didn't really have any stuffed animals till college, where on the first day, my new roommate offered me a stuffed jaguar. It's a perfect snuggly kitty to guard my bed. He's been there since college, but I thought it was a lone stuffed animal thing. Not too creepy... I'm not the girl with tons of stuffed animals in her room... till now.

The past few years, people have begun buying me stuffed animals. Since my jaguar offering 2002, my bed was a single animal bed... in 2010 a friend sent me a Crush (from Finding Nemo)... then my mom got me a National Geographic snow leopard which has a noise pack and growls... another bed guard.

Finally, at Christmas, my brother got me a larger-than-life size owl. (shown above).

While this owl, (I've named him Galileo), is awesome,... I feel like people are filling my bed up with stuffed animals to keep me company...

I don't feel like married women or women with committed boyfriends get offered stuffed animals as gifts... unless it's for their dogs or children.

Not that I'm not totally appreciative of my growing army of bed guards, but if I need to get something or someone out of my bed, I'll use a taser ;)

My life as a secret introvert

I am loud. I am, as some have described me, intense, as others have described me, forthwith. I say, I give it straight. Whatev...

Most people assume this makes me extroverted. Big mistake.

I'm a fake extrovert... loud and proud. Large and in charge... I charm people at work, HBIC of my classroom and department... but get me in a crowded bar or at a party where I don't know that many people and I turn into a mouse.

Many of you will say, "but loads of people are quieter when they don't know people,"... and I would agree. But it isn't "not" knowing people... strangers... I can talk to strangers. I can talk to friends. I don't know how to handle acquaintances. That amorphous category between "people I don't know" and "people I know." Friends of friends... new coworkers... people I've met before but now can't remember. People who's faces are familiar. People at new clubs or the gym or the coffeeshop I always go to, who are also ALWAYS there...

They aren't strangers... cause they aren't that strange anymore... but they don't know me... and it's stressful.

It's stressful because I can be blunt and loud and I have odd tendencies for a sophisticated lady of 27... like, I adore Disney films and can quote most of them, along with Will Ferrell films...

Don't sass me about Jane Austen, and please excuse the random clapping and/or jumping up and down... and the fact that I need coffee to go with my coffee...

But seriously, in my sometimes odd logic, if I don't know these people, then who cares if I'm dancing on the table? And if these people are mah peeps? Then why they hell aren't they up here dancing WIT ME, NAH MEAN?! Oh wait... they are :)

It's that grey area, where you aren't sure if someone is going to laugh at your slightly off-color joke, or be appalled. If they will high five you for your rant on reality tv, or high five your face.

So my issue is, that not only am I stressing in mingling situations, I'm also really holding back. Random nods and kosher, non-committal comments... keep smiling, keep smiling, not too big, you'll look creepy... yes, that's me.

I find small talk exhausting... I don't really follow football anymore... I don't even know how many Kardashian sisters there are... they all sort of blend together to me... Regardless, I get edgy and end up sipping coffee and choking on it while standing in a circle... and it just stresses me out and stains my clothing.

But if I want to meet new people or ever leave my room... I'm going to have to face the awkward music. Instead of just assuming no one else shares my love of Romantic lit and teenage fantasy fiction, I should just honestly answer people's questions when they ask me what books I've read, or like, or what films I've been to lately.

No need to shy away from my passion for rollerblading or crocheting either...

I just need to, as Genie said, beeeee myself... but this is all easier said than done.

After a few "wow, you're interesting" looks, one's confidence does tend to waver, falling back into grinning and nodding and, "Can I get you anything? Where were you on Kate and Will's wedding day?"

But it's much lonelier hiding because you think people won't like you, then if you just showed your true colors and let them judge --- consequences be damned. Who knows? Maybe I'll find another Gabriel Garcia Marquez fan out there, or people who love owls as much as I do, or someone with a penchant for odd hair coloring ideas...

As anyone with basic psych info knows, I've wandered away from the true definition of introvert and extrovert for some of this post... and now I'll wander back.

Seriously, whether or not I'm loud or being my true self in social situations, I still think I'm a closet introvert (oxymoron or redundant?) I do get energy from being alone. I like doing anything alone... I do like hanging out and spending time with people too... don't get me wrong... but I need my alone time.

According to this NYTimes opinion article, collaboration is in, but it's leading to poorer results...

Come to find out, many influential thinkers and people, even people who were very social and moving, are/were introverts who needed that alone time to recharge and borrow into their imagination. Cause if there's one thing it's hard to do with company, it's disappear down into the forgotten dregs of our thoughts and feelings. "They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature." 


That's doesn't mean that they can't work collaboratively, it means... they won't just for the sake of it. Somehow this seems better to me. 


As does coffee to go to my coffee... 


JZ over and out.