Uncanny Valley of the Dolls

I’ve wanted to answer this question so many times and I keep coming back to it and not sending off my answer. Also, thank you for the love. I’m still rocked when I hear that young women value the advice that I have to give. It inspires me right back. Trust me. 

When I was 23 I had just been scouted to be a model. So I was disgustingly hopeful at the time–and awfully self conscious. I was also a baby, in the way that I was so very impressionable. I took people’s words and opinions to heart and I read very deeply into them. Everything made a mark on me. When I was 23 I was actually pretending to be 19, so instead of feeling young and full of hope I felt terribly old and constantly on the verge of expiring. 

Nothing changed for a long time. I always felt like I was desperately holding onto something that could be stripped away from me at any moment. No one knew I was older; I lied to bookers, clients, models. It was a huge point of anxiety for me. I remember meeting photographer Chadwick Tyler for the first time in his Brooklyn studio, I was 26 and he was one of the first people to talk openly with me about depression and medication. That was a huge moment. I guess he was the first photographer I told my true age to. It felt like a dark confession at the time, but he seemed confused that I even gave a shit about it. He took these amazing nudes of me that I will cherish forever. In that moment I felt so embarrassed of myself. I was embarrassed that I wasn’t really 19 or 22 or ‘young’ but when I look back at those photos at 32, I think sweet Jesus Christ I was a hot babe with a body and I almost wasted it trying to compete with some teens. 

The most disturbing part is, those teens I was competing with probably hated themselves and their bodies as much I did. That’s the best part about being 32. You can look back at entire decades of time and write them off in a couple of sentences. Fuck my early twenties, I didn’t know what was up. My late twenties were the best cos I stopped caring what men (and women) thought of me. I fucked around and I lived my life. I started to enjoy sex for the first time. I stopped caring if people thought I was old, if people thought I was a whore. I had a vague idea of who I was, and it really cemented around the time I was 28. Your 30s (I can only vouch for your early 30s) are a bittersweet/conflicted time. You wish you could do it again and not give so many fucks, you’re also so very fucking glad that chapter is over and you never want to go thru that shit again. 

I work at a Veterinary Hospital that does both dog and cat boarding. This is our cat boarding room, and the cat you see there is Professor Jiggly. His full name is actually Professor Jiggly Hammish, but there wasn’t enough room on the post it note to write that. Professor Jiggly is a Bengal kitten (currently 10 months old). My job title is Animal Caretaker, so I get to feed and clean up after and play with all of the boarding pets. Professor Jiggly is not my cat, but he does have an owner. He is not for adoption and is extremely well-cared-for. He has already gone home and is no longer boarding at the clinic but he will be back again.

Professor Jiggly is loud. Anytime you walk into the cat room he is meowing for all he is worth, sticking his paws through the bars of his condo for attention. So I let him out to explore the room. You can see I tried to give him a couple of toys and I even sprinkled some catnip for him but he just wanted to check out the room. I put a post it note on the door so that no one would open the door and accidentally let him out into the rest of the clinic. 

“Harajuku Girl”, Trademark Gwen Stefani

19 Men Go Shirtless And Share Their Body Image Struggles

The fruitless quest for a “perfect” body isn’t unique to women,  though based on the body image conversations we tend to hear, it’s easy to think so.

Spoiler alert: Men have body insecurities, too, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

A blonde and a lawyer are seated next to each other on a flight from LA to NY.

The lawyer asks if she would like to play a fun game? The blonde, tired, just wants to take a nap, politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun.

He explains, “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5.00, and vice versa.”

Again, she declines and tries to get some sleep. The lawyer, now agitated, says, “Okay, if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5.00, and if I don’t know the answer, I will pay you $500.00.”

This catches the blonde’s attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, agrees to the game. The lawyer asks the first question. “What’s the distance from the earth to the moon?”

The blonde doesn’t say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a $5.00 bill and hands it to the lawyer. “Okay” says the lawyer, “your turn.”

She asks the lawyer, “What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?” The lawyer, puzzled, takes out his laptop computer and searches all his references, no answer. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the net and the library of congress, no answer. Frustrated, he sends e-mails to all his friends and coworkers, to no avail.