america the beautiful: the documentary

i went to see the new documentary by Darryl Roberts last night called America the Beautiful. it's a fascinating, terrifying, entertaining and educational look into America's obsession with beauty and the price we pay for that (if that seems like a broad description well, the scope of the movie is broad). what's even more fascinating is that the documentary is written, directed and produced by A GUY and funded by three other GUYS. i love that! he explains a little more about why he was drawn to making this movie on his blog.

anyway... GO SEE IT! it's opening in NYC tomorrow August 1 at Cinema Village, and will open in a number of other cities very soon. click here for listings.

see it because it's educational and entertaining (and if you can't feel comfy eating a 12 pound bucket of buttered popcorn while watching THIS film, when can you?), but also see it because the more people who go out NOW to see it, the more distribution the film will get, and then even more folks will get see it, and this film needs to be seen.

eye-opening.

thank you, darryl. i bet your mama's proud.

what i did last night

made this zucchini bread.

watched this remarkable video.



i highly recommend both.

napkins recommended to catch errant crumbs and tears.

could the jeans be higher-waisted?

all four of us girls greatly contributed to the depletion of the ozone layer with the creation of those hairdos (note the Diet 7up in hand).

looking at this picture makes me a wee sad, and it has nothing to do with the acid-washed denim, brick wall bangs or the Sun-In bleached hair - although all of that is bloody awful too.

this picture was taken about a year after my first flirtation with anorexia. by this time, i was seemingly well-adjusted, at a healthy weight and into my first year of high school. yet if cameras could freeze thoughts as well as images, and you could peel back the photo and peer into my mind, you'd see a mind graffiti'd with a litany of lamentations. SO UGLY. SO FAT. SO DUMB. SO UNPOPULAR. and yet, there i was... so pretty, so healthy, so smart, so popular, but completely unable to see it. blind to it. just about how a freshmen girl in high school is supposed to feel, i know, and i don't know that you can raise a daughter who won't ever experience a lick of self-hatred or self-doubt, but i just wish i could step into this picture, sidle up to 14-year old me, and whisper into her ear:

it gets better, beautiful girl, i promise.

let's trade places for a week and see how you feel about that statement.

this morning, on the subway ride in, i'm standing up holding on to one of the poles. there's a guy sitting down next to me. he seems a little out of it, but i figure he's just tired and undercaffeinated on a weekday morning.

like me.

fifteen minutes into the train ride, he leans over to the woman sitting next to him and says:

hold my seat, would you? i gotta go pee.

she looks at him and sort of gives him a combination shake and nod of her head. not wanting to piss him off, i guess, by saying no, and not wanting to commit to holding this guy's seat on a crowded train.

now, he declares:

"just hold my seat for a few minutes while i go pee."

again, she says nothing. just looks at him through her fluttering eyelashes, playing dumb.

i'm sorry, i'm a woodnymph from the Forest of Everlasting, i don't speak human. where do the fairies live in this city?

at this point, he gets up, and i think i'm being helpful by saying to this guy, who must be an out-of-towner:

"hey, there aren't bathrooms on the subway trains."

"i knooooow..."

and now i know from the stench, that this guy is drunk.

"i need you guys to hold my seat while i go pee in the space between the trains."

right.

and i giggle to myself, because it was just last night that my friend L from sweet, green, magnolia-sprinkled valdosta, georgia said to me via Facebook chat, "your life seems so glamorous in NYC!"

indeed.

really?

American Apparel's Nylon Tricot Suspender Swimsuit

i mean... REALLY?

but why?

wisdom is where you find it

i was headed to a dentist's appointment a few weeks ago to pick up my SECOND $500 nightguard (you are not you surprised to hear that i grind my teeth at night).

i get off at the 53rd + fifth avenue stop. i'm riding up a really loooooong escalator from the subway to the street exit, when some ambitious young lad takes the stairs.*

(i used to be The One who took the stairs, and i don't mean a few stairs, the it-will-actually-take-me-less-time-to-take-the-stairs-so-why-not stairs, but i mean the 150 steps stairs that NO ONE TAKES EVER unless the escalator is dead. i got a lot of who-the-hell and why-the-hell looks on a 90 degree days when i'd trudge up the stairs in my little black work shoes and my little black pencil skirt, eyes fixed, lips pursed, breath controlled. i loved the looks.

BECAUSE I'M BETTER THAN YOU, THAT'S WHY, my thoughts were screaming.

like many eating disorderlies, i fancied myself immortal, special, incapable of feeling pain or discomfort. needless, therefore... better than all you humans).

now, i ride the escalator. it feels GREAT to step aside and let those who want to walk up the escalator do so.

please! go right ahead.

anyway, this lad is leaping to the top of the stairwell, and we're all watching in a combination of awe and annoyance.

show off.

just as guy is getting to the top of the escalator, this homeless man - skin the color of milk chocolate, head surrounded by a corona of crazy gray hair and beard - steps onto the down escalator, takes one contemplative look at the guy dashing up the stairs, turns to the rest of us and shouts, like a king addressing his subjects:

REPEAT AFTER ME: EXERCISE? BAAAAD. MASSAGE? GOOOOOOOD. EXERCISE? BAD. MASSAGE? GOOOOOOD. NOW, GO GET ONE.

*in the NYC subway, if there's an escalator, there's usually a set of stairs right next to it. you see plenty of folks dashing down the stairs, but rarely up. some of those suckers are LONG.

my own little river map

this morning, as i'm getting dressed in front of the bathroom mirror, the sunlight streaming through the window hits my body in such a way so that the fine, white striations on my hips are more pronounced.

i stop. i stare. i gently touch them, delicate little white ribbons weaving across my hips and onto my inner thighs.

"oh, my poor little stretch marks."

i'm sure there will come a day in the not too distant future when i am not so well-rested nor so well-balanced, and i will see these marks as gross and unattractive. i will try to rid my body of them via copious slatherings of cocoa butter and vigorous exfoliations, but for today, i like them. welcome them. they are evidence of a life lived imperfectly, and a body and soul that has adapted.

"thank you."

a reaction of gratitude and compassion instead of disgust. this is a good day indeed.

blackmail on a sunday morning.

these are my cousins's kids. the two boys have their t-shirts wrapped around their heads "ninja-style," i was told (i thought it was more evocative of a chador, but i'm doubting that that was the intent).

see the super-scary ninja in the center? the one w/ the red hood? grandma char has a rather impressive collection of clip-on earrings. turns out super-scary ninjas like to wear them up their nose. part of their "shock and awe" approach to attack, i presume.

i took a bunch of pictures of them, they were all scrambling to see them, and eager for me to take more.

i told Red, "yeah, this is cool when you're nine, but in five years, you so won't want your friends seeing this picture."

which is totally why i'm saving it on my hard drive.

i guess i can take the canned goods out of my backpack then.

i'm headed off to baltimore this weekend (via the fancy, schmancy greyhound bus) to visit my aunt char, uncle rick and cousins. my cousin B is leaving in the next few weeks to teach high school for a year in the boondocks of alaska (are there boondocks in alaska?). i wanted to visit before he left.

aunt char is my dad's sister. my dad was a professional football player. my aunt char married a professional football player. my mom and dad had two boys and one baby girl. my aunt char and uncle rick had two boys and one baby girl. i'm the baby and B is the middle kid, so i'm not sure why it worked out the way it did, but B and i are the more unconventional ones of our respective families, so i guess i feel a special kinship with him. we have both stared down some personal demons pretty publicly, and we both never felt quite right about hanging around our hometowns or settling down like our sibs (we are, what you might call, "late bloomers"). i took off for concrete jungle of nyc and he took off for the sugary beaches of southern california. i guess i've sort of "settled" a bit in nyc, but he's off again to the wilderness of alaska, and he's super-pumped about it.

anyway, he's a one cool guy with a strong sense of self-awareness and humility, and i will miss our late night conversations in the kitchen about politics and education.

i called my aunt this morning to discuss when i might arrive.

"if i take the 2:30 bus i'll get there at 6pm. is that okay? i can come later if you want me to so you guys don't have to drive in rush hour traffic to come get me."

"i don't care. 6 is fine."

"great."

"and we have food."

some things never change.

my brother Lance sent me a copy of the Christmas letter my mom sent out in 1978. this is what she had to say about me (click the image to see it fully):





notice "loves cleaning" was not included in the list.

oops! missed a hip.

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2008/06/zoo-shadow-of-doubt.html

the guy who was doing the photoshopping got so distracted by imogen's brand-spankin' new tatas, he couldn't finish the job. i'm sure he finished, ifyaknowhatimean, but he didn't finish this.

(thanks, r.)

getting my brownie ass on.

an im chat with my bro from this afternoon. referencing this post, of course.
4:42 PMbro: are you eating a "big" salad today

me: ha.

no

HUGE baked potato and veggies.

bro: just saw the post

are you going to eat it all

me: already did.

and a brownie

so there.

4:42 PM bro: you should probably go work out then

me: ha

or vomit.

bro: whatever it takes...you don't want brownie ass

me: lol

brownie ass

bro: i'm just joking

4:43 PM me: i know.

i DO have a sense of humor about it all

most of the time anyway.

something about this chat is endearing to me. something about my brother's ability to joke about it means he gets It... most of the time anyway.

kinda like when he told me a couple of years ago, after i'd started the blog and after i'd done the show in NYC:

"ya know, i don't call you Margox because i think you're big like an ox or anything."

(i did know that.)

sweet, right? in the only way that brothers - who know who you are, where you've come from and how old you were when you stopped wetting the bed - sweet in the way only brothers know how to be... just before they lock you in the closet.