shan

i was very into it, for a while, in my early teens. not ballet; modern dance. the kind of stuff you see in that ‘take me to church’ video. i was good, for a kid. i was strong, i was short and not having a growth spurt (surprisingly helpful), i had insane endurance, and while my flexibility was something i would’ve had to work on, i didn’t have that adolescent instinct to hold back and fade into the crowd. i threw myself completely into everything i did, and the instructors sat up and took notice. they thought they might have a star protege on their hands. so they gave me opportunities, which i, all unknowing, jumped on because i liked the challenge. and they leaned on me, which i, used to team sports, took as pure encouragement – until they started wanting me to ignore my body’s limits.

in soccer, in baseball, in judo, my coaches had been universally in favor of knowing and respecting your limits, expanding them carefully, watching for damage. but dance instructors seemed to want me to hurt myself. i saw others, mostly girls, practicing full speed with injuries that would’ve benched any other kind of athlete. not because they were more hardcore than, say, a basketball player. but because dancers are supposed to be inhuman machines, and it doesn’t matter whether they can heal, only whether they can dance.

so i quit modern dance, and took up tae kwon do.

dancing is like a battle with the body and it’s one of the unhealthy things you can do to yourself. never underestimate ballerinas and dancers because we are warriors and we 

can

eat 

Percy: i love my mom

Person/monster: thats not who i-

No details yet on what has happened to 29-30 other women arrested for ‘public order offences’ (removing their hijabs in public).

Also:

Elham Khatami: “A reminder that women in Iran are protesting *forced* hijab, not the idea of hijab altogether. Bears repeating since lots of ppl are projecting their Islamophobia onto the protests.” https://t.co/Ygs7asbIkr

but jfc, the amount of time it takes to constantly keep people moving and make sure they’re in the right spaces and trying to come up with wording for it is always such a shock. 

Like, fuck, I made you pick up a coffee cup, you need to put it down at some point. also I can’t remember what I dressed you in, can you push up your sleeves? I don’t remember if you even have your shirt on.