An Artist's Life...

Cell phones weren't a thing even in college for most of us. My roommate had a first generation IBM with Prodigy as their dial-up internet connection. My college bestie was still working on a computer requiring a 5¼ boot drive disk. That is - the computer didn't work until you put the boot disk in... Then you put in the OTHER 5¼ disk to save your document work. That's all it did. It allowed you to write documents.

Cell phones were available when I was in Jr high (1986), but they were huge things - attached to a battery the size of a standard kleenex box.

I didn't get a cell phone until 2004 - it was a Nokia "candy bar" phone. You had to click through the keys to get words, had one game (snake), couldn't access anything but news headlines, and most plans had a 25 text message/month limit, before you were charged 25¢/text...

That's not what was happening. Not at all. Yet until I moved out, and started meeting people, talking with them about their experiences, and de-codong what I was raised with vs reality, I simply accepted my mother's statement as true.

If you haven't started down the path of discovering America's consistent doubling down on racism, classism, and the splitting up of citizens into an "us vs them" mentality, designed purposely to remove all opportunity to rise up against a corrupt and unjust government, this is the book to read.

This book is the first to read. There are others, including ones about Redlining, the histories of indigenous people in America, and the experiences of AAPI in our country's expansion into the west. If you're white, and you're still clinging to what school taught you about America, it's going to be uncomfortable. It should be.

History isn't comfortable. It's not always pretty. The books that are deemed "acceptable" and "appropriate" for school don't include what actually happened, and they leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling about how our country was created.

You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:

SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!

They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.

I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.

and this has created the funniest neocash chat board ever

A 6th-level Disintegrate spell... that does 75 damage on average. Bolaire, you go for the Phantasmal Force. It's batted away. Termina moves around, hits you with a Disintegrate, does not hit you.

Growing up in the wake of Twiggy, where every girl had to be 95 lbs soaking wet with no curves whatsoever, it broke our brains, our self-worth, and self-esteem.

If you're overweight, you can't like food. Not according to mainstream society. You just can't, period. Enjoying food, enjoying *eating* that food, that's bad. Eating food in public? Especially unhealthy food (basically anything but a small starter salad, no dressing, with a water) - that's absolutely asking for people to judge you. Because food is the enemy. It's why you're fat. Obviously that's why... It couldn't be genetics, or a disease of some sort, mental health challenges, food addictions, or medications you're on.

If your too thin, you are either praised for looking so good, or you need to "Eat a sandwich". It has nothing to do with your genetics, a food aversion, mental health challenges, or medications you're on. You either have "self-discipline", or an eating disorder (whether you actually have one or not), addictions, or anything else...

The media has pre-programmed our brains with what's "acceptable", and it's an impossible standard that so few women can fulfill, and the rest of us spend hundreds of thousands of time, effort, and money attempting to get anywhere close to it.

We have *hated* ourselves for so long because our bodies don't conform, regardless of whether we actually had the bone structure and genetics to match that standard.

And yes - men have body image issues, too. I know. And for many of the same reasons listed above. That impossible standard.

How do I know all of this? I have lived it every day of my life. My first memory was age 3, my mother being told by my grandmother that I was too fat and needed to be put on a diet, then being given a hot fudge sundae. I remember at age 10, being dragged to weight watchers and Jenny Craig by my mother. She went to one or the other, along with Overeater's Anonymous weekly. She wanted to lose the 25 magical pounds that would suddenly transform her into the perfect shape, made the world magical, and she could forget her woes.

I started my journey with weird diets at age 10... I tried celery and carrots as 2 out of three meals a day. No snacks. No other options... But then I'd binge on candy, ashamed, because I had no self-control.

At 13, I was starting restrictive eating, anytime I did something wrong. Didn't hit 100% on a test, no snacks. Failed to follow through with chores on time? No breakfast.

At 15, I tried binge/purge, but after two times, I couldn't handle it - vomit always went up my nose, and I hated the burning and the smell. So I increased the restriction. No lunches for 2 days a week, while increasing my exercise.

BTW - I look back n pictures of me pre-puberty, and I was tall, but still pretty skinny. I hit puberty at 10, and started gaining weight... More than my peers. No one considered my thyroid was busted. I was just fat. I had failed the test as soon as puberty hit, and I just kept failing.

By the time I high college, I was 5'5", and 198 lbs. The college I went to offered depo for free, so I took it, because I twas tired of periods and fussing. I gained 60 lbs in 6 months... When I stopped taking it at that point, the weight didn't stop.

By the time I was 25, I was 408 lbs, and going to die. My insurance paid for weight loss surgery for me. I was told I'd cheated by not working harder at "just" losing weight. I should have just eaten less. I should have had more self-control and self-discipline, and surgery was the "easy" way out.

Long story short - nothing is good enough for society. Nothing. None of us will live up to impossible beauty standards set by one person who happened to have the bone structure and genetics to fit the mold.

Growing up in the wake of Twiggy, where every girl had to be 95 lbs soaking wet with no curves whatsoever, it broke our brains, our self-worth, and self-esteem.

If you're overweight, you can't like food. Not according to mainstream society. You just can't, period. Enjoying food, enjoying *eating* that food, that's bad. Eating food in public? Especially unhealthy food (basically anything but a small starter salad, no dressing, with a water) - that's absolutely asking for people to judge you. Because food is the enemy. It's why you're fat. Obviously that's why... It couldn't be genetics, or a disease of some sort, mental health challenges, food addictions, or medications you're on.

If your too thin, you are either praised for looking so good, or you need to "Eat a sandwich". It has nothing to do with your genetics, a food aversion, mental health challenges, or medications you're on. You either have "self-discipline", or an eating disorder (whether you actually have one or not), addictions, or anything else...

The media has pre-programmed our brains with what's "acceptable", and it's an impossible standard that so few women can fulfill, and the rest of us spend hundreds of thousands of time, effort, and money attempting to get anywhere close to it.

We have *hated* ourselves for so long because our bodies don't conform, regardless of whether we actually had the bone structure and genetics to match that standard.

And yes - men have body image issues, too. I know. And for many of the same reasons listed above. That impossible standard.

How do I know all of this? I have lived it every day of my life. My first memory was age 3, my mother being told by my grandmother that I was too fat and needed to be put on a diet, then being given a hot fudge sundae. I remember at age 10, being dragged to weight watchers and Jenny Craig by my mother. She went to one or the other, along with Overeater's Anonymous weekly. She wanted to lose the 25 magical pounds that would suddenly transform her into the perfect shape, made the world magical, and she could forget her woes.

I started my journey with weird diets at age 10... I tried celery and carrots as 2 out of three meals a day. No snacks. No other options... But then I'd binge on candy, ashamed, because I had no self-control.

At 13, I was starting restrictive eating, anytime I did something wrong. Didn't hit 100% on a test, no snacks. Failed to follow through with chores on time? No breakfast.

At 15, I tried binge/purge, but after two times, I couldn't handle it - vomit always went up my nose, and I hated the burning and the smell. So I increased the restriction. No lunches for 2 days a week, while increasing my exercise.

BTW - I look back n pictures of me pre-puberty, and I was tall, but still pretty skinny. I hit puberty at 10, and started gaining weight... More than my peers. No one considered my thyroid was busted. I was just fat. I had failed the test as soon as puberty hit, and I just kept failing.

By the time I high college, I was 5'5", and 198 lbs. The college I went to offered depo for free, so I took it, because I twas tired of periods and fussing. I gained 60 lbs in 6 months... When I stopped taking it at that point, the weight didn't stop.

By the time I was 25, I was 408 lbs, and going to die. My insurance paid for weight loss surgery for me. I was told I'd cheated by not working harder at "just" losing weight. I should have just eaten less. I should have had more self-control and self-discipline, and surgery was the "easy" way out.

Long story short - nothing is good enough for society. Nothing. None of us will live up to impossible beauty standards set by one person who happened to have the bone structure and genetics to fit the mold.

No transphobes allowed, only transborbs.

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