I need to work on not adding a preamble to all my posts. Let them speak for themselves yada yada. But I do feel this needs some context. Or rather, I’d like to provide some. This is out of my comfort zone – not to write, but to share. In the endless sea of disordered eating narratives centering white women (i.e. most of them), shockingly, I have always struggled to see myself in any of the representations. No description or portrayal ever felt as raw, disturbed, or revolting as I felt. So needless to say, tw for unfiltered description of…

Perhaps it was instilled in me as a studio dancer, familiar with following an instructor alongside 20 or so similarly aged, shaped, and abled girls in a mirrored space from a young age. Perhaps it began with my blogilates obsession in 2011; I would do several videos a day in fevered attempt to lose the weight I’d put on from a prednisone prescription. Cassie Ho was my Chloe Ting. Frankly, the mass hysteria around Chloe during the pandemic was laughable. Perhaps it was my destiny, as a white, upper class woman who would find herself in New York City, mommy…

On January 3, 2021 I was going for a quarantine walk. We were still enough in lockdown where people wore masks outside and crossed streets to avoid bursting the 6-foot bubble. It was a sunny day in Brentwood and I was most likely listening to Andrew Huberman (YEAH OK I was on that train) or something similar. Lost in the day dream of how skinny I’d be once I finally #LockedIn which accompanied these walks, I almost didn’t notice the woman calling me over from across the street. She had one of those little, white, crusty-eyed, yappy dogs on a…

january – started the year with the most wonderful person in the whole world, got a job offer february – enjoyed last few days of unemployment, started new job, had ovarian cyst removed, same day, sister died march – finding footing at new job, really like it, home for memorial, chaos april – eclipse, babysitting this cute chubby baby, got some jeans i love, walked length of manhattan, oh word people are being brutalized across the country for standing against genocide and i have to go to this 9-5 may – celebrated matt’s bday, mom came to visit, bittersweet, Penn…

This is me typing up excerpts from my journal entry today. Abridged but otherwise unedited. … I feel like I’ve had brain fog for the past 10 years and it has only gotten increasingly worse. I genuinely don’t know if I am capable of deep learning or planning or practice. I ruminate all the time but when I actually try to think about something it is so incredibly hard and unproductive. There are so many things I want to just sit down and figure out but I find myself spending hours to get nowhere. I don’t understand it … Balance…

I have a friend who bakes bread. It always looks beautiful. Sometimes she brings it to her office or gives it to her friends. I don’t really care too much about being able to make bread for myself, but I do enjoy the idea of making it for others. Partly because I like to give gifts and what not, but more likely because baking for others is seen as generous, selfless, and worthy of praise. And I like praise. I asked my friend if she’d send me some starter and she said she would gladly. I missed out on the…

When I was 15 my dad bought a PlayStation. Partially because he had read that playing video games was good for aging people’s dexterity and mental acuity. Partially because he thought it may be something we could enjoy together. Growing up I had pretty firm media rules in my house. These were instated by my mom. Certain shows were banned, TV was meant for non-school nights, at one point we didn’t even have a television, and certainly no video games. My dad had been wary to introduce them to me, wanting to honor my mom’s parenting tactics, but at this…

Barefoot with a beer in hand, I lazily trot across the field where about 20 of my fellow camp employees have gathered to play nauset ball. Nauset ball is a regional game that most kids who grew up in the area played in school, a combination of soccer and handball, and it is camp tradition for counselors to meet and play twice a week. It is a loosely kept secret and a cherished tradition as it provides a space to play, laugh, decompress, and enjoy one another’s company outside of work and with some friendly competition. The ball shoots past…