January 2009
90 posts
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Why do beauty therapists always make it their...
Well, I guess because that’s how they make money.
I got a manicure yesterday, to treat myself after a particularly stressful month of writing. In the space of 20 minutes, the manicurist told me cheerfully that I ought to get my eyebrows waxed and also a Brazillian if I wanted to “keep my man happy”.
The conversation went a little like this…
Manicurist: Do you wax your...
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“Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.”
– Gloria Steinem (via birdgirl)
I remember an old friend saying much the same when we were 20. She was pretty prescient, that one!
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“The MySpace page, with its shrieking typography and clamorous imagery, has...”
– The End of Solitude ChronicleReview.com (via somethingchanged)
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Gala Darling has put together some Chinese... →
I’m a Dog:
This year brings dramatic change for dogs — whether that’s good or bad is up to you! Concentrate on the positive & you will enjoy yourself much more. Make an effort to travel when you can & attend social engagements. Dogs who work in the creative or design industries will feel more inspired than ever this year, & will get lots of appreciation & recognition for...
“Who you want to be is not nearly as important as who you are right now.”
– I Wrote This For You (via fatmanatee)
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You know, I'm as cynical of botox and cosmetic... →
… (see examples here and here and here), but I can’t hate on Mary Rambin for doing it. Not when she’s being so damn honest about it.
It would be nice to see a bit of critique on the subject from her, though (such as why she - and we- have been socialised to think that the barely existent folds in her skin are such a bad thing).
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Who Is Bidding On Natalie Dylan’s Virginity? →
Another response to the Feministe post I referenced the other day.
(via robot-heart)
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"Does my ass look fat in this?" Well, maybe. →
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Kate Harding has an excellent essay on Salon.com about our attitudes towards fatness.
It’s something I’ve observed from a couple of angles. On the one hand, fat is constantly discussed. People regularly and freely giggle and moan about it: “That celeb’s put on a bit of weight”; “Check out that fat person, ew...
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So, I finally decided to get myself some comments...
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Is Facebook Hurting Feminism? →
Sexologist Logan Levkoff says ‘yes’, for two reasons:
1. Teens are relying on technology rather than talking face to face, as a means to avoid rejection.
2. Girls are dating boys solely so they can change their Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’.
Some of what Levkoff says, I liked (particularly, “Why do we feel compelled to announce or define our...
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Joe Biden is like me in old man form
In this respect, at least.
squashed wrote:
Can we make a rule that nothing Joe Biden says should be taken too seriously? The poor man has no internal monologue. When Biden talks publicly, it’s like Obama’s shoulder angel and shoulder demon are giving a joint press conference. Selecting Biden was like a guarantee of transparency. The stream-of-conscious candor is refreshing—but I can’t shake the...
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“The problem with most dating rules, I realised, is that they rely on...”
– Kira Cochrane (via gauntlet)
Love this article.
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Why Does Hollywood Hate the Suburbs? →
I knew from the moment I read the title that this would be about Revolutionary Road (which I saw this afternoon). But while I think that many of the article’s criticisms are valid (self-righteous inner city dwellers, etc), I also think you can’t escape the fact that suburbia - urban sprawl - is isolating. And isolation is depressing.
(via natashavc) (via danhacker)
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Should Natalie Dylan's virginity sale be viewed as... →
Such is the speed of internet memes these days that you’ve probably already read infamous virginity seller Natalie Dylan’s recent essay in The Daily Beast.
If you haven’t, Dylan is a 22-year-old recent women’s studies grad from San Diego who decided to profit from our society’s excessive investment in women’s chastity by auctioning her’s off. I’ve...
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“Artists, by an almost complete inversion of the ordinary world view, frequently...”
– Pierre Bourdieu, 1984.
My Saturday night reading. 10K word thesis chapter due in 5.5 days.
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You mean to tell me there are people out there who... →
It’s 2009, people. We meet up with people whose blogs we read in real life (okay, that was a pretty nerdy example) and reference our friends’ Facebook updates in casual conversation. Surely Google searching someone you’re interested in isn’t that big a deal?
If someone is sufficiently interested in me to ask me out on a date (this being Australia, land of the non-daters,...
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“The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and...”
– Andy Warhol. One of my favourite quotes ever, brought to mind by a conversation I had last night.
As I wrote in a diary entry several years ago now:
You don’t go all giddy over what is in the same way you do over what might be. Or at least I don’t.
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Being 18 is not the best year of your life
lovepuppy wrote:
Just read this after checking da reblogs. Sweetheart, if 18 is the best year of your life, you are probably 20 with a kid and nothing but time to update your facebook profile. Life gets exponentially better as you get older. I have never once thought of the days before I was 18 as the glory days. Ok, I did. Once. I was 18 and making up a title for my scrapbook (true story).
...
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“What he gets, what he seems to intuit, is how to make others feel as if they are...”
– Andrew Sullivan (via jgh)
I know people like this, and they’re extremely clever. They’re able to manipulate you not necessarily so that you don’t notice them doing it, but at least so that you don’t care that they are.
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“Whatever course of action we pursue, it is sobering always to reflect on how...”
– Mills Baker: Self-esteem = Success/Pretensions
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When Legally Blonde came out in 2001...
katoleary wrote:
my friend Maura called and told me she had been telling all her friends at home that her friend Kat was exactly like Elle Woods. It was true. I used to wear pink every day (apparently some people on campus knew me as “the girl with the pink coat) and I was really upbeat and nice. I liked that person a lot better than I like this one, but I know too much now to go back to the...
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Some anonymous lovely/stalker (take your pick)... →
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Was it politics that aged these presidents... or... →
I think there’s some truth to the conventional wisdom that too much politics gives you wrinkles (even student reps start to look tired), but hey - so does being in your 60s!
George W Bush: 54 at inauguration, 62 now.
Bill Clinton: 46 at inauguration, 54 at the end of his term.
Ronald Regan: 68 at inauguration (soon to turn 70), 76 at the end of his term.
Richard Nixon: 56...
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“You’re so obsessed with trying to find love that you don’t even remember how to...”
– Quality advice from meganmcisaac. I couldn’t agree more.
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“I think, on the whole, alas, it isn’t just conditioning - I think that actually...”
– Diana Athill (via gauntlet)
I get where she’s coming from, but I disagree. I think that a lot of young women today - particularly privileged Western women - have mentally divorced the idea of having sex from that having babies. Which is one way in which films like Knocked Up and Juno are kind...
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1.17.09
Actually, 1.18.09.
qod:
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
You know what? Beyond my (rather lofty) current goals, which have me all locked in for the next couple of years or so, I’m not actually all that invested in a particular path.
Maybe I’ll move to New York or DC and become a regular contributor to the New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly. Maybe I’ll be in Paris...
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“The interesting question is not why so many [women] become prostitutes, but why...”
– Kingsley Davis, 1966. I knew our Kingsley must be a man back when he was just a “K. Davis” footnote in the journal article I’m currently reading. He also had this to say:
“Out of the total female population there are relatively few who are young and pretty; they are in...
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“In order to have Class A rating [men] must belong to one of the better...”
– Willard Waller on “dating and rating” amongst American college students, 1937.
Still true?
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I think it's time to pull out the iCing... →
I did it last year, and it was amazing. It showed me how much of what we eat (or, at least, how much of what I eat) comes down to habit, and how easy it is to make healthy choices and steer clear of junk once you get into that habit - plus, after around two weeks my skin was unbelievably clear and I weighed less than I did at pretty much any time other than immediately post break-up.
Then I hurt...
