{Originally posted on Rimarama}

I’m short.

Not freakishly short, mind you, but short enough that I’ve contemplated disabling my driver’s side airbag, just in case.

During my tortuous school days (when I was short with a boy’s haircut, braces, glasses, a weird name, and plastic hoop earrings), it used to really get me down.

“Dear God, it’s me, Rimarama. Please let me get my period before Dawn Bachmeier, let T.J. Trumpower like me and, even if we don’t get married, please make it so that he asks me to the Howdy Dance. And Dear God, please let me grow at least four more inches in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

I’m a bit more comfortable in my skin these days, but every once in awhile somebody will come along and burst my bubble.

Like today at Jazzercise.

(I left the J-dog with my parents, in case anyone is interested.)

I was minding my own business before class got underway, practicing my deep breathing exercises and copying the warm-up stretches the lady in front of me was performing in a nonchalant “I do this all the time” kind of way, when I noticed the girlfriend to my left was checking me out.

At first I assumed she was coveting my totally kick-ass leopard print leotard and crazy stripe leg warmers, but after a time, she turned to me and said,

“How tall are you? Because you are NOT five feet tall!!!!”

(Fur bristles, talons release. Engage Rimarama fight mode.)

Because excuse me? Did I forget to take down the sign on my back? The one that sez I’m “FIVE FOOT FOUR AND FULL OF MUSCLE” ????

{Originally Published on Recovering Straight Girl}

The smell of fall is in the air here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m not really ready to let summer go but fall is my favorite time of the year. More than January 1st, fall feels like the time to begin again–a new year–a new time of possibilities.

We’ve had a fun summer and I’m beginning to be ready to dive in to the world again. I’ve been cleaning things up in my office, my home, and in my head. Taking stock of what I have, what I need, and what to do next. It’s a little exhausting at times, but I know it will all pay off in the end.

I was having some apprehension about starting school again. HG and I decided that changing schools would be a good idea and I applied to the school I want to attend last spring but did not follow up on my admittance until just last week. I think I was having anxiety about it and figured if I put it off too long I could just take some online classes at the community college I attended last term. But I did decide to follow up and did send them the info they needed and did register for classes as a non-admitted student until everything is processed. Yesterday I filled out all of the financial aid info that I know they will need as soon as everything is processed, cleaned out all of my files, recycled an entire garbage can of paper, and got ready to mail two important items that will (yes, Universe, WILL) bring me some money.

I’m making room for great things to come my way.

In a few hours I will pick up my father from the airport for his visit here with us. I don’t think that I realized just how anxious I am about this visit until I woke up this morning at 2:30 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. Usually when something is coming up that I’m not sure about I just put it aside and deny it awhile. It works out for me actually, because I think while I have it set aside in my denial I somehow process through it a little bit.

This visit brings up a lot of things for me. Obvious things like Why Now? Why Now, after all this time, does my father want to come and visit? I’m glad he does and I’m very much looking forward to it but I still hear that voice in my head that says, “What’s wrong with me that he didn’t want to come before?”

{Originally published on The Bloggess}

Yesterday someone asked me how to deal with trolls and haters. I have no damn idea.

Trolls are just like you and me. Only shittier. Or more honest. Or likely to murder gypsies. Fuck, I don’t know. I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know the motivation of everyone reading your blog but what I do know is that in real life you come across assholes and weirdos and someone out there is selling computers to these people. People like the guy who left me this comment:

“I was right, you aren’t that hot. Damn.”

I didn’t mind that some stranger thought I was un-hot but what was disconcerting was that in the photo the guy was referring to? I was seven. And totally hot.

Originally published at Strange Musings of a Distracted Spunk.

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Originally published on The Great Fitness Experiment

Well, you can’t trust them. That’s the first thing. They’ll lie to your face, tell you anything you want to hear, to protect their compulsion. It’s not that they’re bad people. It’s that they’re scared and the eating disorder is their coping mechanism. They already think they’re nothing. Without it, they’re worse than nothing. At least that’s what the voices tell them.

But don’t give up - they need you. Incidence of eating disorders are rising among almost every group, with a surprising (or not, depending on your level of media consumption) surge in adult women. It has a 6% mortality rate. It has only a 50% cure rate.

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Originally published at oh my seven.

I’ve
been thinking a lot about this subject lately… so many women have
issues with their bodies, myself included. And you girls all know all
the usual suspects… billboards, magazines, movies, television, romance
novels (would you really want a heaving bosom anyway? I don’t get
that.) and the like. I love this Dove commercial
that’s been floating around on YouTube, because it displays an
important truth: Advertisements lie to women. They say that you have to
be This Thin and have beautiful flowing hair and sultry, smoky eyes and
full, pouty lips and be a 32D… but most people don’t look like that!
It’s telling that models even have to be Photoshopped, because they’re
not good enough! Girls, why are we buying this lie? It sucks.

I read in a book recently that you can’t give what you don’t have.
We’re taught that loving ourselves is just vanity and pride, but can
you really love other people if you don’t know how to love yourself?
Even the Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)
So if that’s the case, obviously we are to love ourselves. Otherwise
we’ll go around saying, “You’re fat, and you’re ugly, and whoa! Look at
that bird’s nest of hair. Looks like you could use a shower. You’re a
lazy bum, and you’ll never amount to anything. You can never do
anything right… you always just screw everything up.”

I want to kick that habit, so that someday when I have children,
they won’t grow up thinking poisonous thoughts about themselves that
will only cause them hurt and not growth.

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Originally published at Mommy Pie.

I own three bridesmaid dresses. I’ve been to countless wedding
ceremonies. I’ve happily purchased hundreds of dollars worth of gifts
for my friends’ celebratory passages into traditional family life.

Most of those unions have lasted. Some have not.

With my 40th coming up in just a few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot
about about time, and fate, and the very different, and sometimes
unexpected, paths our lives all take.

However I got here, this is my life. I embrace it wholeheartedly.
And I wonder, where’s the ceremony for singles who have found in
themselves the one they’ve been looking for all along? What about the
ones who, for better or worse, never do marry another?

(editor’s note: absolutely hilarious photos after the jump, so seriously do continue reading)

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