Sophie cannot finish her dinner
says she's eaten enough
Sophies trying to make herself thinner
says she's eating too much
and her brother says "you're joking"
and her mother's heart is broken
Sophie has a hard time coping
and, besides, Sophie's hoping

she can be like all the other girls
be just like all the other girls
living in an ordinary world
just to fit in, in the ordinary world
just to fit in like an ordinary girl

Sophie's losing weight by the minute
How did things get this bad
Sophie's family don't understand it
Gave her all that they had
And her sister wont stop crying
'cause her father says she's dying
Sophie says shes really trying
Problem is, Sophie's lying

How did she get this way
How did she get this way
Through trying to hide it
What does it take to say
What does it take to say
She's dying, Sophie's dying

---

Click here to listen to "Sophie"

The picture on the left is my sister Bee in August of 2007. The picture on the right is her this past May. Thankfully, she is almost back up to her original weight now. It makes me sad to look at old pictures, though.

"All change is not growth; all movement is not forward."
~Ellen Glasgo

“Another October has come. I am nineteen[...] Yet, I am in the same place I four years ago. [...] When will I let go? When will stop fighting to keep what is killing me? When?” -thellamatruth

Who doesn't identify with Alanna here? Years go by, and we look back with discouragement because so much time has passed and we seem to have so little to show for it. We're fighting the same old struggles, the ones that we thought would be long gone by now.

Last October, two days before Halloween, a dear friend of mine killed himself. I can't express how much regret and sadness I feel when I think about him, and about the things that happened almost exactly a year ago (but might as well have been just yesterday).
This entire month has been especially hard for me. I feel like the darkness of this time last year has swung around again and I'm in the exact same place. So much for time healing all wounds, right? How can I make it so far and feel like I haven't gone anywhere at all?

I struggle daily with my old demons--the temptation to skip a meal and worship the mirror. The temptation to search my entire house for a razor blade. The temptation to ignore God and try to do it on my own. The temptation to shut myself out, to give up, to take pills, to give in. I think that I'm over it for good and then it all comes back.

I know, though, that I am more than this. No matter how hard it may be to shake those demons, it just matters that I'm still fighting. God isn't ever going to give up on me or decide that I've returned to my vomit one too many times. It may seem like regression, but each time these battles hit, I'm getting a little bit stronger.



I have always pictured my life as a spiral staircase. I have to remember that even though I seem to be coming back to the same place over and over, it's all leading up. I may struggle with these things for the rest of my life, but that doesn't mean I've failed; it just means that my staircase is a beautiful spiral. I'm still climbing. I'm still going somewhere.

What is it that you can't seem to beat?
Could it be that, though you seem to be going in circles, it's all leading up?

My friend Neko wrote an essay that I thought y'all would enjoy, and she has graciously given me permission to duplicate it here. I hope you like it.

---

I take issue with ugly duckling stories - stories that start with an "unattractive" girl and change her, through a series of plot contrivances, into a beautiful girl who ends up with her dream guy. My problem boils down to the idea that a girl has to be conventionally beautiful to get the guy. A lot of people will protest here, pointing at the guy in the end decides that it's what's inside that counts, he loves her for herself, etc etc. Sometimes the guy has been in love with her all along, even when she was "ugly". Whether or not the characters say it, the usual excuse is that he loves her for who she is inside.

And that would be fine, except that  no girl ever goes back to looking the way she did before. In The Princess Diaries, Mia gets all prettied up by her grandmother and continues to be pretty for the next movie and a half. Her hair never curls again, and suddenly all her clothes look nice forever. I didn't see the movie The House Bunny, but let's review the basic plot as shown in the previews: former Playboy bunny moves into nerd-filled sorority house to teach them how to be skanks and get guys. DOES NO ONE ELSE SEE A PROBLEM HERE.  Sure, by the end of the movie we're getting the same token 'be yourself and people will like you' spiel, but there's no reason to believe that. The girls were being themselves at the beginning of the movie, and they were not getting dates. At the end of the movie, after makeovers and new wardrobes and DATING TIPS FROM A BUNNY ARGH MY HEAD IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE, they have dates. The message here is very clear: attractive (read: slutty) girls win in the end. You have to be attractive (continue reading: slutty) for guys to like you. If guys don't like you, you will be miserable and alone always. Mean Girls does the same thing - Cady has only two friends, both of whom are outcasts, until she starts dressing like the popular girls, generating drama like the popular girls, and being a complete bitch like the popular girls. The only characters in that movie who are 'true to themselves' are the mathletes and Janis and Damian (both of whom are accused of homosexuality by the popular girls). Even after Cady supposedly goes back to her 'true self', she continues to dress the same way.

There are so many, many issues in all of these movies (and in the general media) that it's hard to restrain myself to just one. I'm trying to do so because I feel like this doesn't get addressed often enough. These movies purport to be teaching girls that they have to be true to themselves to find happiness (which means true love with a boy, of course). However, what they teach is that girls have to look a certain way, have to be attractive (read: sexually desirable to boys) to be happy (read: to make a boy fall in love with them). It's ridiculous.

I could reword the message of all of these movies to this: being yourself is okay as long as you continue to outwardly conform to social standards of beauty. We don't care how you act or what you think as long as you're beautiful. Or even more simply: all that matters is how you look, because that is what determines your marriageability.

---

Do you like "ugly duckling" stories? If you could radically change your appearance like the girls in those movies, would you, and would your new appearance conform to social standards of beauty

My boyfriend was sick recently, and I decided (rather ambitiously) that I was going to make him some soup. This is significant because I don't cook, ever.  As apprehensive as I was, it turned out wonderfully; it was all gone before I even had time to get seconds. (I wasn't planning to have any, but it smelled so good that I changed my mind.)

This is a pretty simple way to make your family or significant other happy, and there's nothing like the feeling of empowerment that comes from eating something healthy and delicious that you made yourself.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped (or onion powder and garlic powder)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups beef broth
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup tomato juice or V8
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
tortilla chips
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded (about 2 large breasts)
1 cup Monterey Jack shredded cheese
2/3 cup rice
1 zucchini

optional:
1 large tomato, peeled and chopped
avocado

Directions:

1. Saute onion and garlic in oil.
2. Add beef broth, chicken broth, rice, tomato juice, cumin, chili powder, salt, and worchestershire sauce.
3. Heat to boiling.
4. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 1 hr. Add zucchini after 1/2 hour.
5. Add chicken and tomato to soup. Cook 5 minutes.
6. Crumble tortilla chips into bowls before pouring the soup. Garnish with avocado and cheese.