Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Beyond Pink Ribbons

The latest of the video diary: Hurricane Sandy, cancer check up, and the Thiingamaboob. More of my videos here.

You can download the music in this video for free: "Presenterator" by Kevin MacLeod
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/Funk_Sampler/
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

I watched Pink Ribbons, Inc. last night on Netflix and I highly recommend it. It's disturbing, and important, and says well a bunch of things I've only attempted to say poorly.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Thanks Be

With no cancer check-ups on the horizon until January and no major athletic challenges until February (more on that later), I am enjoying this opportunity to take care of body, complete work projects, and overhaul my house from the ground up. Literally. Just last night I went on a rampage cleaning the basement, a chore that has been on my list for months. It felt great to finally feel inspired to get to it. So great, in fact, that I started thinking about scraping and re-finishing the upstairs bathroom ceiling. I've been watching the popcorn ceiling paint come down in flakes and chunks for years and not until now has the task seemed within my reach.

Life is good!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Treasure Map

Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that I believe in emotion. Not as a guide to action — action should be guided by the logical application of information — but as a natural healing mechanism. I think of emotions as "X" marks on the treasure maps of our psyches, the important places to dig in and express in order to recover our full, vibrant, naturally intelligent, creative, and energetic selves. Toward that end, this last video with more laughter per square minute (and a few tears) than ever before. Enjoy!

PS. Music from this video comes to you from BJ Block & Dawn Pemberton and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. You can download it for free here.

Monday, November 05, 2012

Brainwashed

My latest video diary - it's a naughty one.

You can download the music from this video
for free: "Requiem for a Fish"
by The Freak Fandango Orchestra
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike License.
I got out of bed this morning and before I made it across the bedroom floor and into the bathroom I was already thinking that I am too fat. I bring this up not because it's an extraordinary occurrence but because it happens nearly every morning. Even at forty-two years old. Even after cancer and a mastectomy and third place in a half-ironman.

The thought did not upset or derail me any more than a mundane grumble about the weather. It's just a familiar refrain, a background track to my morning routine, like wallpaper that I gaze at daily and never really see.

But for some reason this morning I did see.

You know how they say men think about sex every six minutes? Well I think it's a good bet women worry about the attractiveness of our bodies in about equal measure. I am absolutely sure I am not alone in this. It's obvious - just look at us! The lengths that many of us go to with hair and makeup and diet and exercise, or, for some of us, the lengths we go to to avoid noticing we have bodies at all. But we're constantly measuring our bodies against the women around us, women in movies, and, worst of all, airbrushed Scandinavian teenagers on billboards and in fashion magazines.

Yet we don't admit the full extent of the obsession, not even to ourselves much of the time because either we're so used to it that it doesn't occur to us that it could be different or we're ashamed that we're at all insecure about our attractiveness, or both.

I mean, we are intelligent beings with far more important and interesting things to tackle with our brilliant minds, aren't we? It follows that we might wonder if the fact that we are occupied with hating our thighs instead of, say, ending global poverty or taking charge of the environmental crisis means we are not so smart after all.

But then again, we were brilliant children too, and we understood at a very early age that thinner bodies are more highly valued in our society, especially if those bodies are fair-skinned, blonde, and blue-eyed. We got it that as we grew into adulthood the ease with which we might hold a spotlight in the biggest and even smallest arenas would be tied in the overwhelming majority of cases to whether or not we were considered desirable.

It's sexism, people, and we've internalized it.

In other words, we have been unintentionally brainwashed.

It's time to reclaim our minds and free our bodies from the scrutiny. We are beautiful, incredible beings. Let's treat ourselves accordingly.