Lesbian Mean Girls Meet Hot or Not

At the conference this weekend, I presented at the Fat Studies panel. My research is on body weight and heterosexual romantic relationships. Someone in the audience commented that fat phobia exists among some lesbians as well and told us about this website: Nonuglylesbians.  It is a livejournal site that mostly revolves around rating whether applicants are not ugly enough to be part of their “ugly-dyke hating beautiful-lesbian community”.  Lesbian and bisexual women post myspace-esque and sometimes nude photos of themselves and the already “stamped” members vote in the comments “yes” or “no” and often provide commentary as to why they made their decision. It takes 2/3 yeses to become part of the community.

I have been reading through some of the applications and it is terrible how mean they are for rejecting those girls (but it can also be terribly entertaining). I’m not a lesbian, but as I was trying to look at this site in an objective, social science kind of way, I found myself mentally voting yes or no, too.  I think that we have all been trained to evaluate attractiveness to some extent even when it is separate from sexual desire.

It is an absolutely superficial site, but it is also an interesting testament to countering the old stereotypes about the physical appearance of lesbians. There should certainly be room for the so-called lipstick lesbians who are very feminine, but why does being beautiful have to equate to being a vapid, superficial bitch? And in the absence of competing for men, does a certain kind of lesbianism just worsen the pressure of female beauty? Who better to judge female beauty than women who are already slaves to it?

Someone should do a research study on these girls.

Back to Business

The conference this weekend was OK. Nothing spectacular, nothing humiliating. I’m tired and it has just hit me that I have one month left of the semester and a TON of work to do.

The good news is that, despite my skepticism, the runner’s high has been proven to be real. Even though I don’t always feel so great after my long runs, it’s nice to know that there are endorphins in there somewhere.  Maybe as I get in better shape, I will feel the euphoria more easily.

I am also excited because my mom sent me some new running clothes as a surprise! I’m so excited. She bought me stuff with the real light weight, antimicrobial, high tech, sweat resistant type material – two shirts, pink shorts, black spandex shorts and best of all – running socks so that the skin won’t fall off my feet anymore! I haven’t gotten any new clothes forever and I always find it fun to add a new element to the running thing whether it be a new playlist to listen to, a new trail, or a new outfit.

I’ll surely need something to encourage me tomorrow – 11 miles is the plan. All I can say is that after all of that, I better be blasted with my brain’s naturally occurring opiates! Eek.

Fertility Goddess

Question: Why am I sexually irresistible to men?

For many years, I have wondered what it is about me that makes every man in the world want to bang me. I suspected that I must have some miraculous pheremones that if I were to wear a shirt for three days without changing it, and my body odor sunk in, and some chemists were able to extract it, they would analyze it and come to the conclusion that the only proper label for it is Raw Sex.

It’s a terrible burden. I can’t even go to the grocery store to pick up some Cocoa Puffs without having to take a stick to keep those mutts at bay. I’m thinking about upgrading to mace because it is just getting embarrassing when they start dry humping in Aisle 8. My apartment company is threatening to evict me because they’ve had to replace my front door six times – the fellas keep coming to beat it down. When I’m at a bar, guys will come up to me and ask me to go home with them to their beds. The guys who are are a bit uncertain of their capabilities as a lover will describe the merits of their actual bed. Egyptian cotton. 1500 thread count. Layers of velvet. And some guys, maybe they sleep on cots, are so sure of their sexual prowess, they have actually uttered the words, “I will make you scream.”

The only screaming that I want to do is at them. Why oh why, am I this girl next door sex siren?

The Answer: Mathematics.

Just like the golden ratio and pi and all of those legendary numbers, there is allegedly a magical number for women that signifies fertility to men. Having a waist to hip ratio of 0.7 has been scientifically proven to be the most sexually attractive on the basis of evolutionary psychology and aggregating the measurements of Playboy models and Miss America winners, etc.

The bottom line is that o.7 is the measurement of fertility and hot, hot sex. In some preprogrammed, caveman area of the brain, men see my waist and my hips, and their penises respond to some unconscious calculation and ding ding! It hits them, I am a 0.7 They (and I) are victims of their merciless, unadulterated lust for me.

Ok, so that is an exaggerated account. Well, some of it is, but I won’t tell you which parts are true or not. However, I actually did calculate my waist to hip ratio and it is 0.7. But I’m pretty sure that whole thing has been debunked as a research urban legend or it should be. There’s no way that a ratio could have that much sexual power. Could it?

Nah, we all know that men are really turned on by my sparkling personality and inner beauty. No math involved.

Spring Awakening

I am so predictable during March. The things that are on my mind right now are exactly the same things that were on my mind last March. The end of the semester is in sight, a few teaser days of warm weather, and a shitstorm of stress and work – yep, this year is just like the last one.

I have been doing a lot of fantasizing lately. I’m ashamed to admit it, but they are your garden variety psychological “Rescue Fantasies.” My inner Feminist shudders. My inner Buddhist asks, “What are you trying to escape from?” And when I become mindful, I realize that I am not actually fantasizing about a relationship or a specific man, but rather, my fantasies are literally about escaping- the knight in shining armor physically takes me away from Bloomington. And that makes sense. I would love to take a vacation from deadlines and work and stress and the rut. The easiest way to do that would be to run away on some grand adventure. I did that last weekend, but it has only made me want it more. Blast.

Even worse, this week has been more stressful than usual because I am presenting at a conference this weekend. I’m actually really nervous about how my research will be received because it is a sensitive topic. Normally, I am very confident about work and public speaking, but this whole situation has thrown me off….which leads me to my first parallel to last March: My annual Panic Attack. On Friday night, I freaked out. Panicked. Wanted to back out of the conference altogether. The paper isn’t ready enough, it’s not good enough, what if they are hostile? what if they ask me a question about statistics that I can’t answer? Panic. Tears. Hyperventilation. The whole shebang. Once a year, folks. For a grad student, that might not be too bad, actually.

In an effort to cope with the mounting pressure, I not only fantasize about a prince saving me, but I also begin making lists of what I want to do this summer when I have less stress and more time. Yes, it is time to start making some Summer Resolutions. Look for them to come soon!

And finally, with the prospect of warm summer weather comes inspiration to take on a Body Part Improvement Project. This year, I want to work on getting really awesome abs in time for the cruise in July. My stomach goes from flatter to flabbier, but never really muscular. All I want is one picture of me in a bikini with defined abs. It’s too much work to keep up forever, but someday, after I’ve had a million babies, I want to look at that picture and pretend like that is what I always looked like before I had kids. I think that I owe that to Future Laura.

The Pain and the Glory

Running update, but minimal bragging this time.

I ran 10 miles today.

No yays, no woohoos, no hoorays. No exclamation points.

Instead, sad face.

I am in pain. It was rough going today. We tried a new route because the trail was getting boring and we can only go about 8 miles without repeating parts of it and that is psychologically defeating. So instead, we did something completely unchartered, most of it on country roads where there is no sidewalk and little to no berm. I spent the first few miles running in soggy ditches by the side of the road. This course also introduced hills which definitely sucks. I think that is the main difference: I was jubilant running 9 miles on a flat trail and devastated running 10 miles on a rough surface with more incline. Makes sense.

Oh yeah, and it was kind of snowing. Just a little bit. Very pretty, big flakes. It was like a snowglobe.

Can I just underscore how long 10 miles is? I had no idea. I am terrible at conceptualizing distance and I have never run long distances before, but my poor legs can attest that 1o miles is a fucking long way to go. And I wasn’t even going fast. It took me 2 hours.

The skin is coming off the bottom of my feet. I have callouses. My legs feel like they’ve been through a meat processor. I eat like a linebacker these days. I can’t keep enough food in the house. I’m not used to buying this much food, and then eating it so quickly.

The bright side is that I am proud of myself for being able to do it. I never would have thought that I had it in me. For all of the stuff about body image that I read, I think that there is something nice about thinking of your body in terms of what it can do and not necessarily what it looks like. Although, it does seem to go that the more you do with it, the better it ends up looking. I noticed today that my ass doesn’t jiggle anymore when I run. I used to joke that I run 10 minute miles, but my ass runs 11 minute miles. Well, it’s caught up and now, somehow, we both run 12 minute miles. So it goes.

Earlier this week, I went to the trail to do some short runs (if you would call 5 and 6 miles short – ha) and both days, I noticed that there was a young woman with a young man in an electric wheelchair/scooter thing. He looked to be severely disabled, maybe completely paralyzed. We kept passing each other at various stages of the run, and not to get all Hallmark sappy on you, but it reminded me to be grateful to even have the freedom and ability to run and move. I may not be the fastest runner and it isn’t very pretty to look at, but I’m out there, pushing myself physically and using my body. And I shouldn’t take that for granted. So, even though I’m still feeling the agony of today’s run, I’m going to appreciate it.

Death by Chocolate

“Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.”

–Redd Foxx

With that being said, I am going to eat some Easter chocolate that my mom sent me. That’s right. A whole box of delicious chocolate in the mail and I don’t even care that it is not even 11am yet. Yum.

Babies for Sale

All together now: Baby pictures, awwwwwww.

Vomit.

You know what is not cute, besides babies? Selling pictures of your babies. And why is it not cute, besides the fact that the parents are already wealthy and famous?

Because all of these multi-million dollar baby photo spreads look exactly alike. All babies look alike. Christina Aguilera’s baby, Max, looks exactly like J.Lo’s baby, Max. Same name, same face. They’re freaking babies. They look like aliens or subhuman, at best. Despite this, I will grant you that they are a little cute but only because I am genetically programmed to think the weird looking human spawn is adorable…or maybe People just has a really great baby Photoshopper. Yet, the thing that gets me about these celebrity babies is that they don’t look any different from the baby that I see at my local supermarket whose parents are pretty much God’s gift to ugly.

The bottom line is that these baby stories are boring and the celebrities should not get paid 6 million dollars for some pictures of their newborns. Instead, they should do what Brangelina or TomKat did which was to give their babies enough space to grow up a little bit so that we can actually see what they look like as little people and if they look like their parents. And then give the money to charity.

Because really, the only way that celebrity spawn pictures would be interesting is if the babies turned out to be deformed and absurdly ugly. It’s the same reason that people watch figure skating at the Olympics: it’s enjoyably bland to watch the little pixie skate around in circles, but it’s really awesome when she splatters across the ice in a missed triple lutz.

My guess is that the editors of People were willing to pay the 6 mil because there was a 50/50 shot that these babies would look freaky as hell. I mean, just look at their dad. He’s the genetic equivalent of Tonya Harding.

Honeydon’t

Honeydew is one risky melon.

Have you ever had a really, really good honeydew?

I have.

Like, once.

Honeydew has so much potential. When I cube a honeydew, sometimes half of the cube is really juicy and sweet and tasty but the other half is hard and unripe and bitter. In the same freaking bite! I wish the entire melon could live up to its potential.

My entire life, I have tried to love honeydew. I eat it along with its better looking sister, the cantaloupe, its fun brother, the watermelon, and its saucy aunt, the pineapple. But honeydew is always the greenheaded stepchild of the melon family. Never explosively delightful, never ripe enough, never living up to its potential. It deserves its place as the most unpopular melon, I do believe.

You could be great. Why can’t you live up to my high standards, honeydew. Why???

Look at those cavemen go! It’s the freakiest show.

Observed Bad Boy Behavior #456

When going out to a bar without your wife, it is in no way acceptable to take off your wedding ring for the night.

It’s disrespectful to your wife and deceitful to other women. If your self-esteem is so diminished that you resort to that tactic to boost your ego, you are basically too pathetic for womankind. Either don’t get married in the first place or go home to your wife, but don’t play with fire. What you characterize as playful curiosity in Year Two of the marriage will be full-fledged cheating by Year Ten. Not cool, guys. Just not cool.

Health Freak

This post will basically be dedicated to bragging about my feats of athleticism in the guise of a Half-Marathon Training Update.

I ran 9 miles today! Hooray!! I’m totally kickass! Yay!!

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I am going to analyze the disturbing health freakdom that I have now entered. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I am getting hardcore, and it takes over my life and perhaps less pleasantly, my judgment of other people’s lifestyles.

Now that I eat healthy and run long distances, I feel really turned off when I hear that other people eat fast food or never exercise. And yes, to be honest, I look down on them. There must be some line of freakiness that happens when people get super healthy and I have officially crossed it. I used to hate athletic people. I used to resent girls who dieted all of the time. And I even had major relationship problems when I dated this guy who was a big musclehead because of the implicit and explicit pressure that he put on me to eat healthier and work out more. It really made me insecure. Yet, now, I’ve become like him far more than I ever imagined possible.

The thing about exercise and eating habits is that it is so hard to break the pattern of junk food and lounging around, but if you are able to transition out of that lifestyle, it becomes incredibly easy to handle – and even easier to judge people who are like you used to be because you know what it’s like to be that way and you were able to make the change, so why can’t they? But why does it matter? I make choices, they make choices. Live and let live.

Well, maybe I am just going through a superiority phase because I am so proud that I am actually able to do something athletic and it isn’t actually a permanent personality change. It may depend on how well I keep up with it. I have found that the major hurdle for me was getting past 3 miles. Once I did that, building up to 5, 6, 7, 8 and now 9 miles is a piece of cake. At those distances, it is just about hanging in there for the time it takes you to finish so after awhile, you cross the threshold of “Shit, I am running for a long time, just keep going,” you’re golden.

Bear with me, folks. I have at least 2 months more of being a running snob/health freak. And if I do keep with the extreme running for the foreseeable future, I will work on not bragging or judging about it. Yay, I will be awesomely athletic and a nice person. How swell.