EAT, EAT, LOVE
CURVES ARE NOT THE ENEMY
By Colleen Brown, Union Staffer
Food is one of the reasons I get up in the morning. I love to eat, and I’m not that girl who orders a salad and pretends like it’s a meal. I’m all about juicy burgers, spaghetti, chicken enchiladas, and on occasion, I may go for two helpings of dessert. There’s honestly a part of me that gets excited at the start of every day because my stomach is empty and I have an entire day of eating in front of me. That might sound obsessive, but when you really enjoy something, I don’t see the point in keeping quiet about it. But being a girl, my relationship with food hasn’t always been so splendid.
I grew up in the entertainment industry, and around 15, it suddenly became an issue how my body looked. Puberty hit me like a ton of bricks, and so did my ballet teacher’s comments about how much nicer I’d look if I sucked in all the time. It didn’t have too much of an effect on me at first, but when you’re standing at an audition shoulder-to-shoulder with 20 other dancers who are all equally talented, many times thinner is the winner. Over the course of high school, I definitely became a victim of the “I’m so fat” mindset that seems to plague the female gender.
But eventually, I figured it out: I’m a woman, and I’m supposed to look like one. Earth-shattering, I know. But women in general really don’t seem to understand this concept. We put ourselves on these stupid diets and insane exercise regimens in hopes that we will become thin, when in reality our expectations of how we should look aren’t always natural. You can blame it on the media or your mom; women seem to be trained to feel crappy about having curves. And though I’ve struggled with my own body image, I’m extremely fortunate in that I couldn’t be more comfortable with it now.
These days, I’m fine with the fact that I’m not a “skinny” girl. I’m never really going to be, either. I was born into a curvy silhouette, and I’ve come to appreciate it. Having my wide hips and a butt (not to mention boobs) is what makes me look like a woman, and not a five-year-old. I like the fact that parts of me are soft, and that when you hug me, you feel like you’re hugging a real person. I know we’ve all heard about everyone “coming in different shapes and sizes” but it’s true, and especially for girls. The struggle to maintain thinness is becoming crazy, with diet pills, weight loss energy drinks, and plastic surgery; women fail to realize that being slender is not the only thing that equates to being attractive. I’m obviously not suggesting that we should all eat really unhealthily and never exercise, but fighting so fiercely against your natural shape seems useless to me. If you’re going to be living in your body for the rest of your life, you may as well embrace it.
When it comes down to it, we’re all going to lose our looks as we get older anyway. It’s a fact of life and I don’t see the point of devoting every waking moment to trying to hold on to it. I want to be with the people I love, and go out and experience new things. Try new things. Try new food.
Eating is an experience to be shared and enjoyed with the people you love and care about, who also appreciate and love you. You’ll have your whole life to obsess about your reflection and how well your jeans fit, but each time you sit and eat with a friend or your family that should be the furthest thing from your mind. I asked my friend today what her favorite food is, and she said, “Anything I eat when I’m with my dad.” That’s what it’s really about.
WINTER BREAK BLUES
AIN'T NO CURE FOR 'EM
By Corey Leis
I start every break the same way. I survey the vast expanse of empty days, excitedly filling them with grandiose ideas of self-edifying productivity and oft-fantasized about R & R. The post-semester fatigue is suddenly a welcome excuse to spend that extra hour or six stretched out on the couch, lethargically laboring through my dauntingly lengthy Netflix queue. I look forward to having the opportunity to read some of those books that are teetering precariously in my “To Read” stack, increasingly looking like some towering Jenga game from hell. Do some writing. And let’s not forget the parties. Hooray-for-break parties. Christmas parties. Let’s-get-wasted parties. Let’s-get-wasted-tonight-too parties. Super Nintendo parties. New Year’s Eve parties. Hey-let’s-get-drunk-and-put-together-a-newspaper parties. Parties, parties, parties. Indeed, the last few weeks of fall semester I was looking damned forward to winter break.
The weekend before finals week, however, my dad had a heart attack. I was waste deep in the shit with school—two 12-page papers to bullshit, finals to study for half-assedly, and I was sick! (This is where people often include the favored FML, but I’m not going to.)
Spending the first two weeks back at home was nearly unbearable. My cold made itself ever noticeable, my mom wouldn’t leave me alone, and my dad was (understandably) convalescing the whole time, reminding me that we’re all getting older, goddamnit, and eating healthily is just no fucking fun. I got no writing done, but I was able to get through Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (not as good as The Corrections or Strong Motion, but still pretty good) in about a week and a half, which should’ve taken me only five days.
I was convinced that getting back to Long Beach was the answer to un-slumping my winter break. But once I got back, things just seemed to get worse. Back home, the wind in my sails was minimal, but now I was in the veritable doldrums. Seas as flat as glass. Most of my friends were not in Long Beach, I had no motivation to write or read, I didn’t even want to walk to the mailbox to drop off my Netflix envelopes. I spent most of my time watching countless hours of back-to-back episodes of The Golden Girls (which is played in marathon stretches on the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime), drinking PBR, and eating too much pita and hummus.
All my plans for self-edifying productivity were collecting dust, and I realized I had to pull myself up by the proverbial boot straps and get back on the just-as-proverbial horse. The only cure for the winter break blues is to get busy (in at least one of the senses). Back to school. So, in the screamed words of Some Girls (the San Diego hardcore band, not that dumb girl group), “Here’s to new beginnings, you fucks!” I have great hope for this semester. Thank you for being a friend.