legs

diving. i had been fighting with whether or not to go this week. i was tired as hell, as usual (neuro appointment so soon, omg can't wait), and i'd cycled into my 4th cold this winter. but generally getting into the pool makes me forget those things for a while. diving makes me happy and excited and almost almost feel like a real human person who is awake in the world. so. i went.

and on my second warm-up jump... (second. WARM-UP! not even attempting a basic front dive. just. hurdle, double bounce, front jump.) i lost any sense of centre, twisted in the air, and as my left foot touched down on the board, my right foot touched down on nothing and i smacked face first into the water, shinning the board on the way.

so it hurt. but not even that bad. (not as bad as my flop last week.) mostly i was confused about what my core had done. so i shook it off and laughed and got back up and did another totally messed shaky hurdle, but didn't fall off the board. buuut. coach pointed out that my shin was bleeding and had me sit down with ice on it. at which point i started crying. and then i couldn't. stop. crying. i was frustrated with myself because it didn't even really hurt, and i was only crying cuz tired/frustrated. which made me cry more, which made me more frustrated, you get the idea. then all the sweet little teenanged divers and the coaches kept asking if i was okay, and looking at me so sweetly-nicely, and that just made me more frustrated with myself cuz THIS IS FINE, STOP IT, SELF, and i couldn't think of an easy way to explain to everyone 'oh i just haven't had real sleep in, like, 2 years, and i haven't cried in a few days so my eyes are just doing this thing, it's fine, don't worry! fine, fine. go about your dives!'. embarrassed. angry. tired. tired tired. tired.

eventually i stopped crying enough to do two real simple t-jumps (so as to not have DISASTER be my last jump of the day), went to the showers, cried there for a while more, went home. ridiculous. more ice. some tv and wine.

the good news is that i'm not shaken by the board. the bad news is that i don't trust my body these days, but that isn't so much news. i look forward to a time when a mistake feels like just a mistake, not one more piece of evidence that there is something wrong that i can't seem to solve. i look forward to a time when i am not teetering constantly on an emotional edge, unbalance and brimming with fatigue. i look forward to a time when good days are more than not-feeling-like-absolute-hell, but are actually good. strong. consistent. reliable. rested. because crying on a pool deck in front of teenagers is just not cool, erin.

ff

in honour of me finally getting around to getting the rookie yearbook two, rookie rookie rookie day! holy damn, i love this mag so hard it is dumb. so good, always, that it just explodes my insides with hope and joy and gladness.

and it is not hard, this week especially, to proclaim the greatness of rookie thanks to a brilliant little piece by hazel cills in which she mic drops and then gives you the best stare down of all time and everyone everywhere goes bananas cuz HAZEL RULEZ!!! check it.

'[on]...The Atlantic’s website, Jake Flanagin took a look at a work of over-the-top campy fiction [Ja’mie: Private School Girl] and posed, in all apparent sincerity, this question (about real people!): “Why are young women turning into monsters?” I repeat: monsters. Ooh, scary! I’m sure we’re a big threat to straight white men who write for magazines like The Atlantic, what with all our dangerous selfies and Snapchats and sexts. The article went on to wonder whether the average viewer was smart enough to tell that the show is satire: “Presumably, Lilley poses this array of amusing insecurities and prejudices as a critical device, not face-value comedy,” Flanagin sniffed. “But it’s difficult to say whether the audience can discern the difference.”

As a member of that audience and a teenage girl (aka future monster), I’d like to ease his fears, at least on that last point: Teenage girls know that Ja’mie: Private School Girl is satire; it’s by Chris Lilley, for god’s sake. Have you ever met a teenage girl, Jake? We don’t act like Ja’mie. Just like how you, a guy in his 20s, don’t act like Van Wilder. 

Or so I assume (insert a thousand winks here).'

* kids won't listen - in which hazel tells middle-aged men to please stop trying to explain (mansplain) being a teenage girl, thanks

yes. seriously. yes yes, thank you. the rookie writers are consistently witty, smart, funny, bold, cool, and a zillion other great things. if i were a middle-aged man who worked in the journalism world i'd be scared shitless of rookie. they are the future, folks. and the future looks hella good.

i'm gonna go dance in my apartment after filling it with black balloons. peace out, internets! 

and happy friday, teenagers.

ff

what we talk about when we talk about 'girls'...

have you read preliminary materials for theory of the young-girl? okay, i am not finished it yet. but i like it. so far. sort of off-topic. but. anyway.

this week i got into a little internets-debate with a friend-from-home who shred this post:

* FYI (if you're a teenage girl)

**worth noting that something i took real issue with - the post-accompanying photos of the author's sons goofing off in their swimwear (hear: topless) - has been changed. good. but. just to show the total disconnect. here's what the thumbnail accompanying the post was before:

so. fyi. girls. or: hey girls who are NOT MY CHILDREN stop being slutty sluts in your pictures cause boys will think poorly of you, and oh the shame your families would feel if they only knew, and just generally shame shame shaming blame blame. check out this real gem:

"Did you know that once a male sees you in a state of undress, he can’t quickly un-see it?  You don’t want our boys to only think of you in this sexual way, do you?"

{the charming and insightful mrs. hall}

patronizing and condescending much? also way to not give your boys any credit about their own ability to control their thinking-machines. all the steam coming out my ears.

now. i don't disagree outright that women-and-girls should think carefully about what they share on the internet. i do feel that boys-and-men should be careful, too. like. everyone should. like equality, amiright? we don't talk to boys like that. though. basically ever. when was the last time you read about a boy posting some sexy-stupid photo and it affecting the way girls/theworld thought about him?  was it never? i can't think of one. please do tell me if you can.

i take major issue with someone writing an open letter to ALLGIRLS (sure, her son's female acquaintances, in theory, but their being namelessgirls, the message auto-extends itself to allgirls) about how they're being viewed rather than having a good long talk with the children-you-own/made about the way that society likes to blame-and-shame young-girls and how they could do better to be respectful and thoughtful and discerning in their assumptions about women-and-girls.

there are a ton of great things written all over the internet and elsewhere about the way we view/consume/blame/shame young-girls. and there are REALLIFECONSEQUENCES to this, omg, no duh. i am not the first to talk about this.

i wasn't gonna bother writing about it for feminist friday - i had a nice friendly post with kittens lined up. but today another friend-from-home coincidentally (or-cause-this-stuff-is-constant-everywhere) linked to a timely counterpoint to the shamey piece o' garbage and, yeah, i did want to talk about it after all.

* the six ways we talk about a teenage girl's age

yes. we know (or should know, jeezus) that this dialogue hurts women-and-girls. or, as i've been reading lolita... why don't we just hear a little from humbert humbert on the matter.

"Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as "nymphets". 

[...] the number of true nymphets is strikingly inferior to that of provisionally plain, or just nice, or "cute," or even "sweet" and "attractive," ordinary girls, plumpish, formless, cold-skinned, essentially human little girls, with tummies and pigtails, who may or may not turn into adults of great beauty (look at the ugly dumplings in black stockings and white hats that are metamorphosed into stunning scars of the screen). A normal man given a group photograph of school girls or Girl Scouts and asked to point out the comeliest one will not necessarily choose the nymphet among them. You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine [...], in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs—the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate—the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power."

{Nabokov, Lolita p. 16-17}

and holy cow, this was long before the days of facebook and instagram and the sexy-selfie started destroying girls' reputations left right and centre! imagine!?

(OH! and i haven't had a feminist-of-the-week in AGES, but definitely this week goes to nicole aka friend-from-home who shared that second/good post, and who is a great and grand feminist-friend on the facebook machine and who used to (still does?) draw awesome cat-themed drawings. woooo! yay for nicole!)

happy friday, all you sexy-kittens.

over the (rainbow/top)

anna sui is kinda like eating too much candy. hurts the brain. soo soo sweet and hippie-ish and WWEEEEEEE we are 13 years old wooooo! but every now and again there is an undercurrent of dark, and then i get happy. it is still incredibly young. but. you know. a little bit of where the wild things are in with all that spun sugar.

i don't much care, though, for those below the knee tights. feels done. that was a hip young styling thing we were doing 2 years ago. and now it just swings into avril lavigne-ey. which is basically like saying my-least-favourtie-thing-ey.

{anna sui spring 2013, photos by alessandro viero at gorunway.com by way of style.com}