this is not a call out post but more of a Call to Arms
Because I want to stop this culture of glorifying the underweight distance runner. I want to stop the disordered-eating-as-normal discourse. i want to stop hearing about former NCAA standouts coming out about their disorders years later because I want people to be able to be honest when it’s happening. I want there to openness and trust in this community rather than constant call outs and shaming. I want this because it took me hearing myself tell a therapist three years ago about my eating habits to realize how ingrained this culture is. Because I said “That’s just how we are. Runners. We’re all like this.” And that’s not true and that’s not fair. And I know our lives are run by numbers and sometimes it happens before we even realize but I’m sick of sitting by & watching teammates and competitors whither away for maybe one … two stand out seasons before they crack and break. I wish someone had bitched me out four years ago about my weight and the photos I posted here - and many did. I answered the same way I see a lot of people answer on here … “How could I have an eating disorder if I just ate an entire jar of peanut butter? Or if I had ice cream for breakfast??” But 6+ stress injuries and a shattered career later, I’m imploring you all to work on changing this culture we live in. It takes more than celebrating certain bodies and I don’t have all the solutions. But I just want less girls to go through what I went through in this sport. I don’t want to keep my possible future daughter (or son) from starting this lifestyle because I fear so badly this will be her fate.
The parent trap remake with Johnny Depp playing the twins to get Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton together again
Parent trap remake starring me trying to get Amy Poehler and Will Arnett or Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield back together
" Running with another person is an intimate activity. Run with someone for long enough at a time and you will be stripped bare. Modesty falls away with the miles. The body- its functions, its excretions, its wants- cannot be ignored. The heavy breathing, the sweating, the soft talk that comes after exertion, the hours spent together- running with another person is an intimate activity. It’s hard to keep the heart uninvolved. "
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I tried to argue that Ophelia resonated because Shakespeare had made an extraordinary discovery in writing her, though I had trouble articulating the nature of that discovery. I didn’t want to admit that it could be something as simple as recognizing that emotionally unstable teenage girls are human beings. …
When Ophelia appears onstage in Act IV, scene V, singing little songs and handing out imaginary flowers, she temporarily upsets the entire power dynamic of the Elsinore court. When I picture that scene, I always imagine Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Horatio sharing a stunned look, all of them thinking the same thing: “We fucked up. We fucked up bad.” It might be the only moment of group self-awareness in the whole play. Not even the grossest old Victorian dinosaur of a critic tries to pretend that Ophelia is making a big deal out of nothing. Her madness and death is plainly the direct result of the alternating tyranny and neglect of the men in her life. She’s proof that adolescent girls don’t just go out of their minds for the fun of it. They’re driven there by people in their lives who should have known better.
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Fun animal facts I have learned being a zoo docent
1. There are several ways to classify the large cats, one of the more useful ones is into the roaring cats (tigers, lions) and the purring cats (bobcats, lynxes). The puma (also known as the mountain lion) is the largest cat that purrs. I’ve heard it up close, it’s amazing. A cheetah’s purr sounds like an idling motorcycle engine.
2. Kangaroos cannot move their legs independently of each other, they have to move them in sync - when they’re on land. When they’re swimming, they can move them separately. Hopping is their most efficient way to move - a walking kangaroo is awkward as hell. They swing both legs forward using their tail as a third leg to prop up while their legs swing.
3. People often think that flamingoes’ knees bend the wrong way. They don’t - the joint you’re seeing in the middle of their leg isn’t their knee, it’s their ankle. Their knee is up by their body, and it bends the same way ours does.
4. Giraffes only sleep 1-2 hours a day.
5. Bald eagles’ vocalizations are not what you expect. When you see a flying bald eagle in the movies and hear that majestic caw sound? That isn’t an eagle, it’s been dubbed over with another bird, usually a red-tailed hawk. Bald eagles actually sound…not majestic. Kind of like if a kitten could be a bird.
6. Elephants are one of only a handful of animals that can pass the mirror test - in other words, they can recognize their own reflection (and not think it’s another animal, as dogs and cats usually do). They tested this by placing a chalk mark on an elephant’s forehead and then showing it a mirror. The elephant investigated the mark on its own forehead, indicating it knew that it was looking at itself. The only animals that pass this test are the higher primates, the higher cetaceans (orcas, dolphines), elephants, and weirdly, magpies.
7. One-fifth of all the known mammal species are bats.
8. A kangaroo mother can have three joeys simultaneously at different stages of development: an embryo in her womb (kangaroos can do what’s called embryonic diapause which means sort of putting the development on pause until she’s ready for it to develop further), a joey in her pouch attached to one nipple, and a joey out of the pouch on the ground who nurses from the other one. The amazing thing? Each of her nipples make different formulations of milk for each joey’s different nutritional needs.
9. Bonobos, our closest genetic relative (they are more closely related to us than they are to either chimps or gorillas) are almost entirely non-aggressive, matriarchal, and use sex to solve all their problems. They engage in both same and opposite sex interactions, non-penetrative sex (oral, rubbing, manual) and with any age. That’s an interesting area to work in, lemme tell you.
10. Tortoises have super loud sex. Like, really loud.
11. All grizzlies are brown bears, but not all brown bears are grizzlies (grizzlies are a sub-categorization of the brown bear).
12. Reindeer are the only deer species where both males and females grow antlers. The males shed theirs the beginning of December, the females shed theirs in the spring. So all of Santa’s reindeer are girls, heh. I love telling little kids that.
13. If a rhinoceros knocks off its horn, it grows back faster than you’d expect. One of ours, Rosie, has knocked hers off twice.
14. Gorillas get crushes on each other. And on the humans that take care of them. Male gorillas also masturbate. I don’t know if the females do, I’ve never seen it. Sometimes it’s like a soap opera up in there.
15. Langur monkeys are silvery-gray in color - their babies are bright orange. Like Cheeto orange, I do not exaggerate.
16. Polar bear fur is not white, it’s transparent, like fiber optics. Also, their skin is black.
This is all excellent and awesome and I am a happier, better person for this knowledge.
Also, you go badass lady reindeer. Sleigh.