Tumblr Tuesday!

I found this video via a post from tumblinfeminist!

Readers I need your help! I am trying to figure out if posting Monday through Friday is the best route for this blog (I'm leaning towards yes right now).  I am also trying to decide, if I do post five days a week if there should be more of a schedule, so you know what topic to expect on what day.  Would more order be positive?  If, for example, Monday were an open day for whatever were happening in the world locally or globally, internally or externally, Tuesday was committed to a shout-out to someone's tumblr, Wednesday were about sex, food, books, or music, Thursday was about body image and Friday was about Feminism?  Do you have feedback or suggestions about some kind of schedule?  Do you prefer the free format as is?  I want to hear from you!

Comment below or email me shapedbymylife@gmail.com

Warning: Not Suitable for Children

Excuse me because this is going to come out as delicately and mellifluously as possible; are you fucking kidding me with this fucking book about dieting for children?!  I thought today I wouldn't have the mental energy to post anything more than a few photographs or a favorite quote, but then I found this article on Jezebel: New Children's Book Encourages Young Girls to Diet.  Like young girls don't have enough ways to contract body image issues through images continually perpetuating unhealthy and unrealistic body images, oh boy, a children's book specifically addressing our culture's obsessive nature with weight, food, and how women look; because it's a scary thing to imagine a world where women aren't so obsessed with how they look, what they eat, and how others perceive them, how much energy they would have to think and act regarding to other things, like say, working towards creating a feminist, anti-patriarchal society where women aren't still viewed as the second class gender.

What kind of message are we sending children, especially young girls, that there is only one kind of image that is acceptable; shocking, it's a white girl. Why don't we just give girls links to pro-ana websites like this one and just continue the ideology that their worth is based strictly on the size of their pants and their weight.  That happiness is achieved through outside things, including their appearance, not through working on becoming the type of person, exhibiting traits that will be positive for both them and the world.  No, that would mean girls wouldn't grow up into women aren't preoccupied with weight, and where would we be then?

Would you read this book to your daughter? What is a children's book that left a positive impression on you?  Please comment below or email me: shapedbymylife@gmail.com

A Wednesday Book Review

The Bigger The Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women On Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards Of Being Female. 

This collection of essays was not what I was expecting; but I did find, even in the essays that didn't resonate on an extremely personal level did have moments that stood out.  In order for an essay to be enjoyable doesn't mean I have to be able to relate to it from personal experience either.  Scrambled Eggs by Molly Watson is one of the essays that stood out; it was well written, which always helps, and is about the difficulties of trying to get pregnant, something I have not experienced myself.  I don't know anyone else who has read this collection, but in the reviews I have found on goodreads, either women loved the essays or were not that impressed.  It seems more of the younger readers felt the collections focused more on aging and babies, and while I can understand that complaint since I'm in that strange period of my life where I can still relate to the agony of my teenage years and at the same time continue to move more into adulthood, surrounded more and more by baby conversations.  

There were several essays that really stood out, and what I love about reading a collection of essays is it's great nighttime reading.  It was easy to read an essay a night before bed to help unwind from the day.  Some of the essays actually made me laugh out loud.  Here are some of the excerpts I underlined while I read:

"Kind lovers have told me I have an hourglass figure, and, it's true, my ass is up to the task of balancing out my belly.  I've spent my life hiding the part of my anatomy that magazines command me to smash, squeeze, or starve into pancake submission.  Usually I wind up with gas instead of anything approaching a washboard."  Navel Attire, by Jennifer Munro

"I didn't have a Big Dramatic Moment, like they do in the movies.  I did not fire off a snappy string of self-assured zingers to someone who insulted my big-boned self amid a chorus of applause and shouts of "You go, girl!"  I did not don a dirndl and twirl around on an Alp, marveling at the majesty of life and my place in it.  It wasn't an instant epiphany.  It was more a quiet, gradual acceptance of who I was, regardless of the fact that my body had decided to weigh whatever it damn well please (the nerve!)."  Battleships, by Jennifer Carsen

"Beauty pageants are comical.  They are also tragic, because nothing so stupid should ever be taken so seriously."  More Than Pretty, by Tara Bray Smith

"Why did it matter so much about fatness?  The shame passes down from parents to children, projected, denied.  Perhaps it is our very appetites, our desires and needs that shame us."  The Ugly Prize, by Laura Catherine Brown

"For about two months, I liked my body just the way it was.  I didn't think about what I ate (not trying to gain or lose, just being okay) or think about exercise or how certain light looked on my skin."   Feels Like Teen Spirit, by Marie "Riese" Lyn Bernard

Have you read this collection? What are you reading right now? Please comment below! Or, as always, feel free to email me: shapedbymylife@gmail.com

Reading Is Sexy: We Need Bookstores

I lost my job three days before Christmas--a job I had for three and a half years--and stayed not because it was the best job, or I had enough hours, or was challenged enough, but because I love books! I also believe in independent bookstores staying alive.  And although my employment at the store didn't end under any terms I thought they would, I still want to live in a town that has an independent bookstore (whether I'm living here for another six months or another six years).

These are the kinds of businesses that are being run out of towns, small and large, across the country.  It would be easy to blame big box businesses such as Barnes and Noble or Borders, and yes, of course they do have an affect, but even these businesses are suffering: Borders Declares Bankruptcy; and even though they were a competitor of Buffalo Street Books, the big problem as stated in the well-written Community Buy-Out Proposal by Bob P., is that the market doesn't support this kind of business in a town like Ithaca.  And, what I think is the biggest issue and also obvious, is people shop online.  Online "stores" like Amazon, it's convenient and cheap.  Yet, many people don't realize that none of that money stays in the community. What kind of community do we want to live in? We can either talk about how progressive our city is, or we can make sure through our actions, that it stays that way; and not only continues to support the local businesses that already exist, but supports new small businesses.  There have been too many store fronts left empty, both in and surrounding the commons for far too long. It's time to put your money where your heart is.

Welcome Wagon

I am shaped by my life, both twisted and straight. -Marge Piercy

I'm a 27 year old female living in Ithaca, New York. After graduating with a B.A. in writing in 2005 I moved away and have been back in town now for three and half years.  I've wanted to start a blog but was undecided about whether I wanted to focus on a single theme; I came to the conclusion I don't want to limit myself. I am my favorite subject to analyze, dissect, create and recreate. I will write about sex, relationships, food, the world, art, music, books, and writing. Maybe as time goes on I will get more of a grip as to what this space is for. So here it is. Follow as this twenty-something tries to take it one day at a time.