I can't make decisions. I'm a president!

and first off, I’m 5'7, 5'11 in dance shoes, 170 pounds, broad shoulders and big hips and not small in any dimension. For a ballroom dancer, this means a lot of time spent learning the men’s parts. Especially in lifts.

I’ve had years now of guys kinda just going “lol heck naw” when told to lift me. I don’t admit this part much, but it makes me want to sink into the ground and die when every other girl can be lifted, but I’m just too big.

So this guy, smaller than me and really cute, shows up at auditions and I see this girl across the room getting tossed about like the beautiful pixie she is, and apparently I looked a little wistful because this boy asked me if I liked lifts.

“Oh. I… Uh… I’ve never really done the girls part. I’m a little big, haha…” (laugh it off, as usual.)

He looked me dead in the eye and then picked me up like a movie princess, bounced me in the air a few times, and set me down effortlessly while telling me whoever refused to lift me before was just being a lazy wimp.

I tell them, and she says, “Really?! I thought you were one of the seniors from the other university!”

My 29 yr old self:

It was so he could get a three-day vacation instead of two.

Him to me: “I don’t understand why you can’t empathize with my situation.”

Me, who has missed countless vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, funerals, and weddings:

Ava DuVernay got a call once from “a friend.” This friend, a man and fellow member of the Directors Guild of America, called to warn her that “there [had] been some complaints.” Other directors were upset that DuVernay was recruiting only female directors for her show, Queen Sugar, and said she was discriminating.

so, in other words,