…I lobbied LPC/OLP potentials for a post-2015 Senate appointment. First up was Saturday night’s confab at the Pauper’s Pub, organized by the venerable Jeff Jedras and some guy named Ed Blake, who didn’t bother showing up. There I met longtime gal-pal Nancy LeBlanc: Nancy wants to represent the OLP against Cheri
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redjenny: On Pregnancy and Body Image
Hooray for hips and belly
I have never considered myself a particularly vain person. However, constant media messaging (your body is not good enough, therefore you are not good enough) has a way of working itself into everyone’s psyche to some degree. My whole adult life I’ve pretty much maintained the same weight, no matter what I did. I have not really been able to gain or lose much regardless of what I did. Although my weight is exactly normal for my height, its distribution had caused me some anxiety. I was scrawny on top, with visible ribs and a flat stomach, and big on the bottom. I went through phases of calorie counting and exercising but only managed to get bonier on top, while my bottom half happily went about its business as usual. People asked me if I was sick. So much for weight loss attempts.
Still, I couldn’t shake the other desire I had always had: to be stronger. I hated the fact that I was small and weak, that no matter how hard I worked out in the gym, I would never be stronger than the average couch surfing dude. I would never be able to easily lift, carry, push and pull things. I would never be athletic. (I rode my bike all around Toronto for years, living mid-town, going to school downtown and working uptown – 1-2 hours a day of biking, and never got faster. Other bikers passed me, breathing easily while I struggled. So frustrating! A doctor I went to about chronic fatigue told me I had so little muscle that my mitochondria couldn’t effectively use oxygen. Um thanks, but what do I do about it. True story.)
The best thing about getting older was losing whatever interest I had in “perfecting” my visible body, and learning to accept its limitations (more or less – I still hope I might magically grow 25 pounds of muscle). I also grew to appreciate its positive aspects: I was generally healthy, I was fully mobile, I could touch my tongue to my nose, thrift shopping is a breeze for me because I’m so small.
Being pregnant is a bit of a trip because for the first time, I have to gain weight. I have only gained 6 pounds so far (16 weeks, so I’m right on target) but I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been, and I’m only getting bigger. (No more flat belly!) Except for the fact that my clothes don’t fit, it’s oddly enjoyable. I feel a little bit rebellious, flaunting society’s dictates (all women must have the body of a 12 year old boy). I can be proud of getting fatter. I am enjoying food like nobody’s business – gawd everything tastes so good (except the things that taste so bad–get them away from me). I have ginormous boobs (well, for me), and my wide hips finally are coming into their own. These amazing hips are going to make labour and delivery easier (I hope) than 12-year-old-boy hips would. I am proud of what my body will accomplish (hello, creating new life). I am enjoying the experience of my changing body.
Ask me how I feel when I get to the waddling stage.
Continue readingredjenny: On Pregnancy and Body Image
Hooray for hips and belly I have never considered myself a particularly vain person. However, constant media messaging (your body is not good enough, therefore you are not good enough) has a way of working itself into everyone’s psyche to some degree. My whole adult life I’ve pretty much maintained
Continue readingredjenny: On Pregnancy and Body Image
Hooray for hips and belly I have never considered myself a particularly vain person. However, constant media messaging (your body is not good enough, therefore you are not good enough) has a way of working itself into everyone’s psyche to some degree. My whole adult life I’ve pretty much maintained
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Make Us Do The Right Thing
“I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932, in a statement to labour leaders who had advocated for bold policies. Leaders often explain that their failure to enact the right policies is because public support is either lacking or
Continue readingredjenny: How useful am I?
As an academic, I question my usefulness. Society will always need carpenters (or plumbers or tailors or nurses or farmers). Their benefit is pretty clear and obvious. Will it always need historians? How important is my obscure research that might only be read by a handful of other obscure historians?
Continue readingredjenny: How useful am I?
As an academic, I question my usefulness. Society will always need carpenters (or plumbers or tailors or nurses or farmers). Their benefit is pretty clear and obvious. Will it always need historians? How important is my obscure research that might only…
Continue readingredjenny: How useful am I?
As an academic, I question my usefulness. Society will always need carpenters (or plumbers or tailors or nurses or farmers). Their benefit is pretty clear and obvious. Will it always need historians? How important is my obscure research that might only be read by a handful of other obscure historians?
Continue readingredjenny: Hello blog, I have missed you
I think I feel like blogging again. My last post was about a year and a half ago. What have I been doing in that time? I have been working on my PhD in history. I found I was too busy, and had too little energy for writing. Also my
Continue readingredjenny: Hello blog, I have missed you
I think I feel like blogging again. My last post was about a year and a half ago. What have I been doing in that time? I have been working on my PhD in history. I found I was too busy, and had too little energy for writing. Also my
Continue readingredjenny: Hello blog, I have missed you
I think I feel like blogging again. My last post was about a year and a half ago. What have I been doing in that time? I have been working on my PhD in history. I found I was too busy, and had too little energy for writing. Also my eyes hurt.I just pas…
Continue reading