maybe getting fatter and maybe not caring

As noted previously, I am still new to this whole cooking thing. Being blessed to go to a school that forces you to stay on the generally mediocre meal plan for all four years, I did not really ever have to cook in college, nor did I have the cash moneys to buy ingredients. Hauling tons of food from the grocery store into my house and storing it and then figuring out what the hell to do with it was simply too much when I already so much on my plate, like Res Life and class and putting clothes on. Plus, there was that whole eating disorder resurgence thang that generally left me with even less desire to learn how to make food and consume it.

But now, fully and totally left to my own devices in terms of feeding, it's sink or swim. And the Sheriff is swimming (dog paddling, really) but learning that cooking is not my forte. I get immense satisfaction when something I make is delicious, but when it's just palatable, my motivation to cook again is reduced even further by lack of being a cooking show rock star by natural talent. And yet, feed myself I must. So sometimes my meals are less than balanced: breakfast might be a pop-tart stolen from the snack closet at school, and dinner could be Triscuits, cream cheese, and whatever my roommate is making and willing to share. Working out on the regular has been reduced to random planks and pushups and once a week yoga.

So while I do not have a scale to consult/obsess over and all of my clothes still fit, I am starting to feel a bit softer. A bit fatter, even. And somehow, I don't really care. It's not at the level it was my first year of college, where I gained 40 pounds (yep, 40. Suck it, Freshmen 15), and was just impressed by my own fat and also too happy drinking full-fat chocolate milk with every meal too care. But still. There's a level of apathy and simple observation over the changes that I think is kinda worth celebrating.

I attribute this to several things: being so busy that worrying about my maybe expanding thighs simply doesn't fit in the agenda, living and working in a community that (generally) praises and gets a boner over a more hourglass/thick figure (see: every song about booty performed by a black man), the fact that my clothes are usually not very structured so a little expansion is excusable. But above all else, I think it's more that I feel like what I'm doing with my body and my mind is a lot more important than what my body's looking like these days. Besides, I've still got dudes for days so I'm not too concerned about my attractiveness factor.

And yet. I'm a human, and I've been at least a little brainwashed with the idea of what a "hot" body looks like for a young white woman, and know that I am moving slightly away from that as I acquire a bit more cushion for the pushin, as they say. The insecurities are still there; I'm not superwoman at fighting them off all the time. But slowly, I'm getting there. Sometimes, it is that easy.

Ever had this experience? How do you react to bodily change, especially when it's during a period of intense life changes as well?

Much love,
The Sheriff

the PSU sex abuse scandal: a few thoughts

Growing up, I hated Penn State. HATED THEM. They embodied everything that young angry punk rock Sheriff hated: overly happy, athletics obsessed, beer soaked, and hard mentality driven fools in Pennsylvania (not that I was stereotyping or anything). I always doubted Joe Pa's squeaky image for the team, having heard many lurid urban (really rural) legends of the craziness of Penn State football team party antics and such. Most of the kids who did have the grades to go to college from my high school went to Penn State--getting into main campus was achieving the dream for some. I sneered at these minions and went to my fancy pants lady college and had a ball and became actually less of an asshole towards PSU folks. But the herd mentality still made me uneasy, as I've discussed here before.

So the sex abuse scandal that's going on right now is shocking but somehow also not entirely unexpected to me. How could a patriarchal, old boys club not cover up something of this proportion? If you can stomach it and are not easily triggered, I suggest you read the grand jury indictment. It makes the whole institution look negligent for not doing more to stop it, and frankly, I absolutely include Joe Pa in that group. He was the figurehead and he had to be fired if for nothing else to make the trustees feel better, but he also did one of the worst things someone can do when things are going wrong: doing the minimum required to stop the badness. It's not quite the Kitty Genovese effect, but it's enough that he absolutely deserved to get fired for his lack of action. I don't care if he's the winningest man in college sports. I don't care if he's ancient. I don't care if this team has been his life and the season's almost over.  A BOY WAS RAPED IN THE SHOWER AND HE DIDN'T CALL THE COPS. Period. The efforts of PSU students to raise money/awareness for child abuse survivors are a touching gesture and genuinely seem to be coming from a good place, but the riots the night of Joe Pa's firing? Less so.

I'm still so angry about this it's hard for me to think straight. What say ya'll?

Much love,
The Sheriff

PS--this adds some good questions to stir the pot further.