Ah Ah Ah Ah – Staying Alive!

I am Millennial. How Millennial, you ask? I’m Millennial as fuck.

So Millennial that I refer to myself as a 90s kid without a hint of irony. So Millennial that I do occasionally (like once a week) take time out of my otherwise busy schedule to take selfies for no other purpose than to post the best one on social media. So Millennial that I have thought extensively and in great depth about which Friends character I am at heart. So Millennial that a senior staff member at Time could easily read through my tweets and write a snarky article about me. I am Millennial with a capital M.

Need further proof? Oh, okay. I got you, bae.

Here are a few things I did this week:

1. Tried to order pizza at 10 AM
2. Laid in bed and watched Criminal Minds for six hours straight
3. Cried when my mom sent me a Valentine’s Day gift
4. Moved all of the pictures on the my walls on a Wednesday night at 11 PM
5. Freaked out and texted my best friend AND sister when R. Kelly liked one of my Instagram photos

Oh yeah, that’s me, in all my Millennial glory. Move over T-Swift! I just ate cheese sticks for dinner in my bathroom while I was taking off my makeup.

SO. If it’s not already painfully obvious, my grasp on adulthood is shaky, at best. I’m exceedingly terrible at completing adulty tasks, like, ya know, washing dishes and taking out trash. I don’t think I’ve made my bed since I moved into my new apartment. There are potato chips in my cabinet that are so old I could probably use them as poker currency.  I have a leak in my shower that I should prooobably fix. But eh.

You know me. We’ve met. I’m a Millennial.

But here are a few other things about me. I’m smart and educated. I’ve kept two cats and a dog alive without anybody seriously harming anyone else. (It helps that all of my animals have a vested interest in sleeping for as many hours of the day as they possibly can.) I work and go to school in a PhD program. I stretch a little bit of money – and I do mean a really little bit – a long way. I recently learned how to make some pretty dope coffee.

No, I’m not so great at remembering to wash clothes. And yes, I have made an actual hobby out of seeing how long I can hit snooze before I absolutely have to get up. (It’s four times, if you’re wondering.) Still, I’m pretty proud of myself.

I know, I know. It’s weird to be proud of yourself for staying alive. Like, yeah bro. That’s the end game. It’s your biological imperative to keep yourself alive. I knoooow.

But damn, man, life’s hard! Living WELL below the poverty line is hard. Actively deciding to grocery shop and cook dinner rather than eat off the Taco Bell dollar menu every night of the week is hard. Plucking up the energy to drag my tired ass into the shower (almost) every day is hard. And health insurance and taxes and dating and vet bills and buying a car and all the other things no one tells you about adulthood. It’s all HARD. I feel like that round plate continually spinning around in the microwave, waiting for a beep.

Where’s my beep, man? DAMMIT, I NEED A BEEP.

Here I am, though, working and studying and paying bills and trying to save money. (HA!) So hell yes I’m proud of myself. I might be the quintessential white girl without my shit together, but I’m fine with that. Why? Because I’m alive. And even more than that, I’m staying alive, every single day.

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2016-2016.

One Man Away from Welfare: The Millennial Girl’s Story of Working and Womanhood

“Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.” – Helen Keller

There’s this pesky rumor going around about Millennials. Something along the lines of how we hate to work, and when we do, we essentially suck at it.

Let me set the record straight.

I’m 26 years old. I have a Master’s degree, I teach college English, and I have multiple publications to my name. And until about two weeks ago, I worked two jobs.

I’ll do that math for you. That’s six days a week where I did work that someone actually had to pay me for (which is completely different than the crafting work I do in the hopes of one day dethroning Martha Stewart in a cuter, less 10 to 15 kind of way). Four of those six days ended up culminating in 15+ work hours, which isn’t counting grading I took home with me. So here’s my point: I work hard. I always have. I’m not a slack ass.

Yet, with a few clicks, you can find a host of condescending web articles, including this incredibly special video "Millennials in the Workplace Training Video," which details all the ways in which Millennials pale in comparison to their predecessors in the workplace. But don’t take my word for it. Just Google it. There are plenty of articles out there describing how exactly managers can “deal” with their up and coming Millennial employees. As if we are the ebola of the workplace - an entity that needs to be handled. We, the needy, self-absorbed, whiny, and lest we forget lazy Millennials destined to plummet the American economy into the worst recession it’s seen since the Great Depression. Oh wait…

But I digress. 

The most frustrating part of this whole ordeal – the ordeal being that I am a Millennial worker in a Boomer run world – is the fact that women still face the added challenge of actually being women. So on top of being young and thus subject to skepticism, millennial women and I also have to deal with men who challenge our position in the workplace for no reason other than the fact that our junk turns inward.

Case in point: recently, after a year, I left a job at a small business – a gourmet pizza place, actually – where two male bosses twice my age repeatedly undermined my intelligence. Never mind the fact that I have somehow with my feeble woman brain managed to acquire not one but TWO degrees. Or the fact that my colleagues (most of whom have PhDs and M.As) seem to find my performance up to par. OR the fact that an article of mine was just published in a scholarly collection examining Girls and Millennial angst.

Put that aside for a minute, and what do you have?

You have one boss who apologized to one of MY COLLEAGUES for anything I might “do wrong” while he sat at the bar with his wife. A colleague I asked to come eat and drink a beer while I worked in an attempt to promote the restaurant, mind you.

You have another boss who made several jokes to me and other female coworkers bordering on sexual harassment. A man who thought nothing of flippantly announcing that I wanted to “go through the initiation process” as I joked with a fellow Sons of Anarchy fan about how I’d make a killer old lady (on account of being small and innocent looking – I'm a tiny ginger with a baby face. Who would ever suspect me??). Now, I know I’m young and I’m burdened with this damn lady brain, but I do feel as if casually jesting to a coworker half one’s age about having a train run on her (or more accurately, wishing to have a train run on her) might, just might, fall under the category of sexual harassment. I could be wrong though.

You have two men in their forties who repeatedly called ME, a woman in my mid-twenties, immature and disrespectful because I demanded to be treated with common human decency. That uniquely Millennial desire for something more than simple acknowledgement of existence from an employer and an understanding that there are lines that should be respected. And when they aren't, we are allowed to say so, regardless of our age.

So yes, I’m annoyed. I’m bothered by the fact that my age, gender and intelligence are characteristics that somehow make me suspect or threatening or uncomfortable. Even more frustrating to me is the very fact that I feel the need to justify myself for sounding like a snot-nosed, entitled Millennial kid who’s never known a day of real struggle in her life, let alone the tribulations of women who fought the good fight so I could stand up to two men twice my age, hold up my finger, and say, “Let me stop you right there, you RAGING ASSHATS.”

The truth of the matter, though, is that Millennial women have been taught to fear the F word: FEMINISM. (Eeeek!) That scary bra-less condition that may turn us into those Rush Limbaugh-imagined feminazis with lasers for eyes, loaded missiles for breasts, and God knows what between our legs.

So what we have then is women, particularly young millennial women new to the adult workplace, living in a world of catch 22s. It’s like Claire Shipman and Katty Kay say in their book, The Confidence Code: The Science And Art Of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know, “Women suffer consequences for their lack of confidence—but when they do behave assertively, they may suffer a whole other set of consequences, ones that men don’t typically experience…. If a woman walks into her boss’s office with unsolicited opinions, speaks up first at meetings, or gives business advice above her pay grade, she risks being disliked or even—let’s be blunt—being labeled a bitch. The more a woman succeeds, the worse the vitriol seems to get. It’s not just her competence that’s called into question; it’s her very character.”

                                                                                                                               

Basically, kids, the moral of the story is this: there's still no place for a capable woman who relies on her brain in a man's world.

But I have another F word for just such occasions:

FUCK.

That.

All day long.

But just in case that isn’t clear enough, here’s a chart that breaks it down a little further:   

Things I Do Like a Girl	Things I Don’t Do Like a Girl
Earn 77 cents to every man’s dollar	Think
	Fuck
	Cry
	Throw
	Have and/or express emotions

I think that covers it. 

Now, I don't imagine my diatribe will stop anyone, even those who do sympathize with the plight of the millennial women, from actually eating there. They do serve good food, after all. And very often our ethics take a back seat to other, more pressing needs and desires. And I'm even more sure that both of my former bosses could list on cue every reason why I was the most terrible employee to ever grace their threshold. 

But regardless, I’ll leave you with a quote from one of the  baddest bitches around, the ever-legendary lucky star Madonna: “I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.” 

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2014-2014.

The Future Freaks Me Out (No, Seriously Though)

Pardon me, I’m about to go crazy cat lady on you. (Sorry I’m not that sorry.)

Get this: within the veterinary community, there exists a pervasive notion that cats who live relatively domesticated (read: indoor) lives will come to view their owners (ha!) as surrogate mothers and thus live in a prolonged state of kittenhood.

(By the way, that was totally a Jeopardy question. It’s definitely not like I know this useless piece of feline trivia because I stalk veterinary forums to ensure that my cats really are supposed to look at me with that hateful stank face all of the time. Just in case you were wondering.)

The point is this: adult cats, given food, toys, chin scratches, and a sizeable portion of every bed in their considerable domain, will retain their kitten-like qualities of playing, purring, and generally being the cutest fucking creatures to ever walk the earth.

Now, think about this: recently, every news outlet from The Wall Street Journal to Jezebel has published something (usually snippy) about the emergence of “millennials,” that much scrutinized group of people born between 1981 and 2000, as defined by the Pew Research Center. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re “America’s newest generation.” Even though it sounds like we ought to be rolling our hair in victory curls and letting our boys slip their hands up our skirts before they march off to war, all this really means is that Generation X is now old news. They’ve had their hay day (e.g. Reality Bites and pretty much any other movie Wynonna Ryder starred in during the 90s).  Gen Xers have kids now, and that’s pretty much the social equivalent of getting braces and wearing high waters. Nobody with crazed mom eyes or receding dad hairline gives a flying shit what’s on Twitter or Kik or Snapchat because they’ve got elementary-aged kids in their houses, and they spend most days trying to not pluck their own eyelashes out one by one. Justin Bieber? Miley Cyrus? Unless those name are followed by “microwave-safe” or “family size,” most of our Gen X friends don’t give a good God damn.

But not us. We’re Millennials. We’re basically the walking, talking, YOLO-ing future of America. Morley Safer even said so on 60 Minutes when he dedicated a WHOLE HOUR (get it??) to us in a show called, “The ‘Millennials’ Are Coming.” I will kindly overlook the fact that CBS cast millennials as some amalgamation of 1950s B horror movie villains riding into town like the horsemen of the Apocalypse bent on making everyone dance. (Footloose reference. CHA-CHING.) The gist of all this talk is this: Millennials are entitled, unaccustomed to hard work, and unwilling to fly the coop. In essence, Millennials are the weird adult cat-kittens of the new technology-driven, socially-accepting, network-forming world. We are part of, what some neuroscientists are now calling, “emerging adulthood.”

Maybe that’s all true. Maybe I just feel a little defensive because I am a millennial and I have lived at home and I do occasionally need to mooch off my parents. I mean, I think it’s fairly general knowledge at this point that the human brain doesn’t fully form until approximately age 25, which for most millennials is coming up or very recently became a thing of the past. We all sure as hell know that we aren’t even remotely prepared to make complicated life decisions as teenagers. When I was sixteen, I bought bright yellow sweat pants and wore them to school as a completely legitimate fashion statement. Proof positive that the young adult brain is subject to periods of serious instability.

(Never mind the fact that I’m 25, and last weekend I bought a ring so big and ridiculous that it makes Kim Kardashian’s butt look believable.)

The point is that I just find it a little odd – off-putting, if you will – that the very people who raised us are now complaining that we’re not acting according to the values our parents raised us with. Does anyone else see a sizeable gap in logic there? Weren’t we told to go to school? To prepare for college? To wait for marriage and babies until we had a degree? Weren’t we the generation whose parents wanted us to be involved in extracurricular activities and make tons of friends and just be kids? Weren’t we encouraged not to be our parents by our parents?

Bottom line: this ain’t your daddy’s rodeo.

Life is different now. The world is different now. And millennials are the first group of young people trying to figure it all out. We were the first generation of tweens to have in-home computers and the first crop of teenagers to have our own personal cell phones. (And these weren’t iPhones, guys. These suckers were BRICKS.) We’re the first generation to figure out dating and jobs and love and kids and marriage and how to tie our freaking shoes with computers, phones, iPods, tablets, Nooks, Kindles, and God knows what else buzzing all around us. We’re growing into adults in the wake of 9/11, with the advent of social networking, and in the midst of one of the most precarious economies since FDR busted out the New Deal.

SO YEAH, I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. Go get a PhD? Take a few years off and work? Eat a bagel for breakfast? Somehow, my life has become a never-ending game of Twenty Questions that doesn’t seem to have any discernible answers. Meanwhile, all these Baby Boomers and Gen Xers keep demanding that we, the beguiling Millennials, act our age (not our shoe size). And I’m still kinda wondering, damn, what’s my age again?

The PIMP Ring. I wear it and immediately feel like Beyonce. 

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2013-2013.

Raising Hell! (...And Dahlias Too)

I have a secret.

What, you ask? Is she addicted to cocaine? Does she lead a double life as a dominatrix? Does she secretly hoard York Peppermint Patties in her bra??

Sadly, no. I hate to disappoint. I’m not that exciting. I barely like blowing my nose, so cocaine is definitely out. I’m not even remotely coordinated enough to be a dominatrix. And in my apartment, my roommate is the hoarder. (Although, to be fair, she keeps her Tootsie Pops on the top shelf of her closet, like any good food hoarder would.)

No, my secret isn't as thrilling as all that, but it’s something I haven’t told anyone except my nearest and dearest. Because even as I think it, I feel like a creep. But here goes: I think I might be a crappy feminist.

OHMYGODNOSHEDIDN’T.

I know. I know. It’s terrible. It’s the worst thing a 21^st century woman could ever, EVER admit out loud. (Unless, of course, you think 50 Shades of Grey is quality literature, in which case you’re in a class all your own). But really, I think I might actually be a terrible feminist.

Not in a disturbingly scary, Anne Coulter kind of way, though. Before you call the National Organization for Women and report me for lady-hating, I should clarify that I’m probably one of the most outspoken and openly indignant women you've met since the limp penis ascot blouse went out of style. I’m little, I’m loud, and I've got Irish fire coursing through my blood. I’m basically a one-woman Rush Limbaugh coronary waiting to happen. I may be a shitty feminist, but I still want women to have the right to vote and leave their houses in pants and read books written with multi-syllabic words. I ain’t into the barefoot and pregnant thing. Unless you decide that’s what you want to do. (And then, by all means, do you boo boo. Do. You.)

Honestly, though, I sincerely and ardently believe women are intelligent and capable and deserve every damn cent of every damn dollar for every damn hour they work. I’m into birth control and sex education and single parents and little girls and boys playing with whatever toys make them shut up for the longest amount of time. I’m conscious of what I wear, and I think about what I say. I am single-handedly keeping The Vagina Monologues running. I’m with women (and men) all the way.

That being said, I think I suck at feminism.

It’s a tricky thing to confess, especially since I have a degree in Gender Studies. You’d think a woman like me would be a Grade A, free range, 97% fat free feminist. But I’m not. I studied gender, and with that came a major emphasis on queer theory. For those outside of the academic circle, gender studies and queer theory aren't quite as LGBT-centric as they sound. (Although I do spend a good deal of my time in the company of those who practice the love that dare not speak its name. And it’s awesome.) Queer theory is, in actuality, mostly concerned with interrupting a culture which naturalizes white, Christian, middle-class, hetero-normative culture at the expense of – well – everyone else. Suffice it to say, queer theory hasn't exactly made it to the streets yet. It’s predominately significant to a small group of scholars who actually like to write twenty page essays and present them at conferences and wear monochromatic pant suits. Like me.

What’s most important about queer theory and gender studies is that a whole generation of twenty-something men and women (and me) grew up post-feminist movement and right dab smack in the middle of a whole new mindset. Not just post-second wave, big glasses-wearing, frizzy-haired, Gloria Steinem feminism. We’re post post second wave feminism. So post that most of us aren't old enough to remember 1992’s “Year of the Woman.” Why? Because we were all more excited that we had learned how to flush on our own. Given our life spans, feminism seems almost – dare I say it? – dated.

Please don’t shoot me.

But think about it. If I’m specializing in issues of gender and sexuality, and even I think feminism is beat, there have got to be a few more people out there who have been feeling this way for a while. Maybe it’s because feminists couldn't foresee a future in which a study of gender might stretch beyond just women’s issues. Maybe they were SO DAMN PISSED for being drugged up and impregnated and shellacked with department store beauty products that they went too far the other direction. Whatever the reason, I've got to say, our second and third wave feminist

friends (an extremely valiant group of women, don’t get me wrong) handed us 21^st century ladies a hard narrative to follow.

Don't misunderstand me. Betty Friedan was on the money when she said, “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.” I don’t. Never have. And unless Swiffer gets really creative in the next few years, I doubt I ever will. But sometimes, I've got to admit, being a Strong Feminist Woman is really damn exhausting. I’m not doubting myself or undermining my own badassery. I am begot from a line of women so strong they make Lou Ferrigno seem like an asthmatic four year old. I come from a woman who moved 14 hours away from home when she was twenty-three for a job in a place she knew jack about. She’s the same woman who subsequently had a breast removed, stared cancer down with a stony eye, and worked out after every round of chemo. This heifer ain’t no joke. This is my blood people. Sia don’t know shit about titanium.

But there’s a flip side to this whole Strong Feminist Woman business. Our fore-mothers gained a tremendous amount of ground in a short span of time, and those women made it possible for me to even study gender in the first place. But, BY GOD, did they leave us twenty-something women (and men) with a lot of damn baggage. We live with an incredible number of social rules regarding what it means to be a strong woman (and possibly even more about what it means to be a man who respects strong women).

So, here’s my quandary: I’m vulnerable, and I’m not sure if that’s okay.

I don’t know if modern women even have a script for how to be strong and vulnerable. The whole notion had a brief shining moment in the late eighties, but somewhere along the way, our mothers were scared off. Maybe Olympia Dukakis was just too damn awesome. And Greek. Whatever the reason, a vulnerable, emotional feminist seems to be a cultural taboo these days. Remember when Hillary Clinton cried on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire? She faced considerable backlash (from both sides) who claimed her emotions were calculated or that she was doing female politicians a disservice by pandering to stereotypes about femininity. She was accused of trying to win over voters with a “human touch” – as if, at their cores, strong feminist women are all black box hearts and haphazardly crossed wires.  Clearly, we’re only programmed to show emotion when it’s advantageous – you know, when holding babies or petting kittens or trying to win the Democratic bid for president. Moments like that.

Whatever the reason, the Strong Feminist Woman in her twenties trying to be hip and socially conscious is, under no circumstances, allowed to admit that sometimes, when she’s sure no one will catch her, she reads romance novels for the love story, not just the sex. And she absolutely cannot own to watching Sabrina and sighing a little wistfully because Audrey Hepburn wore the most ridiculously gorgeous clothes ever donned or because Humphrey Bogart was clearly her soul mate (only he died 25+ years before she was born). And she definitely, definitely can’t admit that sometimes men hurt her feelings. Because she’s a feminist, dammit.

Well, fuck all that noise. I have this new theory I've been working on for Strong Feminist Women looking for something perhaps a little more…21^st century.  It goes something like this:

I’m a feminist. I cry. Deal with it. 

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2013-2013.

Some Girls are Bigger than Others (And Other Things No One Told Me)

Here’s something I’ve been wondering: why is it culturally acceptable to be a complete and total jackass but it’s not okay for a woman to weigh more than an average 8^th grader?

Case in point: Charlie Sheen went batshit crazy after being fired from Two and a Half Men (possibly before) and was rewarded with a comedy tour and a new sitcom; Adele, on the other hand, still gets hassled about her weight, despite the multiple music awards she’s won and the fact that she is probably one of the most talented individuals on the face of the planet. Lena Dunham, star of Girls and Tiny Furniture, is beyond gifted. Literally, her talent knows no end. She’s a writer and an actress, she’s funny as hell, and she’s an Instagram extraordinaire. Yet she still feels the need to point to her fat (and I say that with air quotes) as a point of criticism in her own TV show. Even Mindy Kaling, who graduated from Dartmouth and has since become a star/writer of The Office and The Mindy Project, feels compelled to defend her weight because she has, at some points in time, worn a size 10 jean.

I know. We might as well stone her.

It’s an odd phenomenon in Western culture that I still can’t quite comprehend, particularly since the same standards don’t apply to men. Having said that, PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS, BOYS! Let me make my case before you masculinist studies folks pimp slap me about the face with gender stereotypes and allegations of sexism. (Maybe I should also take a moment to state here that I’ve got nothing against men. I have a really cute dad and a brother who punches me and makes fun of me and dances like a diva bitch when inebriated just as any good brother should. And, since I’m going to be talking a good deal about weight, let me also say I respect people of all shapes and size. All God’s creatures and whatnot.)

                                                                                                                                     

So, first let’s consider Jack Black. He's a musically riotous comedian who voices the cutest panda ever to grace the animated screen and is married to Tanya Hayden – a woman so beautiful even I would consider abstaining from male genitalia and absconding with her. However, Jack Black is not only actually married to a knock out, but Hollywood would also have us believe (rightly so) that he’s perfectly capable of attracting Kate Winslet AND Shannyn Sossamon (i.e.The Holiday) despite his fairly rotund figure. Yes, that’s Kate Winslet, whose naked and glorious body most of us will always picture draped in pearls while Leonardo DiCaprio attempts to draw her and simultaneously keep his eyes from bugging out of his skull. And Shannyn Sossamon who was also cast as the love interest opposite of both Josh Hartnett and Heath Ledger (alav hashalom) respectively – two equally beautiful men of rigid jaws and pectorals so hard they could crack walnuts. Don’t get me wrong; Jack Black is just about adorable. Either Kate or Shannyn would be lucky to catch a guy whose accomplishments in life include giving voice to a kung fu-loving bear whose father is, rather suspiciously, a duck. That’s a man for the ages right there.

Oh, and we can’t forget Jason Segel. Who doesn’t love him as Marshal? NO ONE. Everyone loves him. He’s perfect. Every heterosexual girl (and maybe a few of my lesbian and bisexual brethren) knows that Jason Segel is, without a doubt, ridiculously precious. He sings, he writes, he acts – he’s a freaking renaissance man. He single-handedly made the Muppets cool again. Seriously, come on. My pants pretty much dissolve just thinking about it. And, the truth is, no one gives a rat’s ass if he’s milky white and soft around the middle. We all willingly buy him as a reasonable counterpart to Alyson Hannigan’s Lily, Kristen Bell’s Sarah Marshall, Mila Kunis’ Rachel, Amy Adams’ Mary, and Emily Blunt’s Violet. And why? Because he’s smart and funny and handsome and he looks like he could cuddle the lit major angst right out of me. In all fairness, I must admit studio execs did advise him to lose weight in order to play the role of Tom opposite Emily Blunt in The Five-Year Engagement. However, I must also point out that he already had a strong history as a leading man who could conceivably attract gorgeous women and he wrote the damn movie, so I’m assuming he was a shoe-in regardless of the extra tummy love. Plus, in reality, he’s dating Michelle Williams. So there’s that.

Need more proof, you say? Okay: Kevin James got Leah Remini, Bill Cosby bagged Phylicia Rashād, even Phil Griffin (a moron of epic proportions) managed to snag Lois – and he’s a goddamn cartoon. Face the facts, kids: guys of all shapes and sizes can score pretty girls with smarts and humor alone. Except in Phil’s case. Apparently Seth MacFarlane knows some incredibly open-minded women.

My point is, as a culture, we’re willing to accept the notion that some men just happen to be bigger than others, and it doesn't seem to faze us. Of course men are capable of securing partners because their looks (as fraught with social convention as the idea of “looks” may be) are second to brains, wit, brawn, humor, bravery, etc. BUT, the moment lady parts enter the picture, weight suddenly becomes a Big Damn Deal.

Let’s think about this realistically. Could, say, Melissa McCarthy reasonably be cast next to Ryan Gosling? Would America not have a fucking COW at the idea of her climbing into bed at night with the subject of every “Hey Girl” meme floating around Pinterest? As a society, we nearly had conniption fit when she was cast as Molly in Mike & Molly alongside Billy Gardell (also a man of a few extra pounds). Don’t believe me? Think this is just the ranting of a girl who’s eaten one too many bowls of spaghetti in her life? I direct you to "Should 'Fatties' Get a Room? (Even on TV?)" written by Marie Claire’s ever-so-witty Maura Kelly, who stated on the magazine’s blog that she’d find herself "grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other." 

Well dear God. 

Imagine if Molly’s fella were a six footer with a body like a Rodin statue. Kelly (and the Marie Claire staff that stood behind her in support) might actually have to give up television altogether. Or at least keep a bowl handy for all the puking they’d be doing. And God knows what would happen if any girl in any American sitcom or movie were to mention the hole that wears in the inside leg of her jeans because her thighs rub together. Because she's a woman. With woman parts. Kelly's poor fluff-filled head might spin right off her shoulders. Because, as we all know, a round woman (or, in this case, any woman with body fat of any sort) is about as sexy as a sea urchin – even when she’s sexing up another “fatty.” 

But what am I thinking? No (good looking) guy in his right mind would want to be with a girl like Melissa McCarthy, right? Especially not since she’s sustained a successful career for 10+ years, won an Emmy, and given birth to two children. That would just be insane. She ought to feel lucky that a fellow "fatty" would deign to fictitiously marry her.  

Am I starting to sound bitter? Eh, I’ll own it. I am bitter. 

As a nearly twenty five year old woman, I can honestly say I very rarely feel pretty. Not in a “I need you to tell me I’m beautiful or I’m going to cry and make everyone uncomfortable” kind of way, but in a “It never occurred to me I might be” way. I learned from an early age (i.e. magazines, books, movies, TV, general pop culture media) that there were some things I couldn't wear without receiving sideways glances, some men I wasn't supposed to date, and some people I just shouldn't presume to hang out with because I simply wasn't pretty enough. Not that I've ever figured out what "enough" actually is. Maybe there’s a scale somewhere I missed on the way to the bread aisle. Maybe this is all some super secret beauty industry plot to bring down competitors (ahem, Dunkin Donuts). Whatever the reason, I've known it as a matter of fact for most – if not all – of my life. I'm not pretty enough. And do you want to know why, ladies and gentleman? Because I've never been small.

(Well, that’s not strictly true. I was born 5 lb. 6 oz. But those were probably the glory days in terms of my waist line.)

This is not a desire for sympathy. I'm not planning to hurl myself from my apartment window (which, from the third floor, wouldn't do much anyway). I like myself. I’m five feet tall, I have fiery red curls, I wear sweet hipster glasses, and I can rock a cardigan better than any librarian you know. But guess what? I’m not a size 2. And that's okay. There’s nothing wrong with being thin, of course. My sister is beautifully tall and svelte. She’s basically a poster for a 1920s jazz club come to life. One of my dearest friends is built like a walking, breathing Barbie, and she’s perfectly lovely (even though I’m so jealous of her legs I want to shank her every time I see her). But, not me. I’ve got the blood of hearty Irish peasant women running through my veins. I was never meant to be a slim girl. I was built to breed and repopulate the earth – and, judging by the size of my hips, I’m working on becoming a one-woman, baby-making USO. Since I started puberty, I haven’t been smaller than 130 lbs (a size 10 for me). That’s not to say I’m not conscious about what I eat or that I don’t exercise. My ass still hurts from the Brazilian Butt Workout video my roommate’s got me doing. (As a side note, I never realized how truly invaluable my ass really was until it hurt to put on pants.) And believe me when I say I sweat with the force of thirty linebackers on my 3-4 weekly cardio sessions. Sure, I like a pasta dish, and I ain’t ever gonna turn down a potato, but it’s not as if I sit around my house shoving my face full of Tastykakes (which is my prerogative if I so desire). My skinny sister, on the other hand, has been known to murder a dozen cupcakes in a single sitting. But she's skinny, and I'm not. Them's the facts; it’s DNA. I simply don’t get small. My body just won't have it, guys. And, for whatever reason, I’m supposed to believe that my genetics are somehow in the wrong.

It’s especially difficult as a twenty-something woman to convince myself that I’m not actually some alien creature my parents plucked out of the black lagoon given that my cultural role models are Kristen Stewart and number of other very hungry looking girls in tiny dresses. I mean, I know the script. I’m supposed to be dating, partying, breaking up, having copious amounts of rigorous sex and looking fabulous in trendy clothes while I do it all. (Well, except perhaps the sex.) But ya know what? I feel ridiculous in trendy clothes. You want to know why? Because they’re made for tiny girls. Now, I realize tiny girls can’t walk around covered solely in the foliage of Biblical lore. They get cold, those skinny minnies. They need threads too. But, really, when will American clothing companies figure out that they can’t put a striped maxi dress on a five foot tall girl with D cups. THEY JUST CAN’T. I end up looking like the world’s shortest parachute. Believe me when I say it’s not cute. Not even a little. Because, in reality, some girls weigh more than others. And I happen to be one of those girls. 

And that’s okay. Because, contrary to popular assumption, women do actually come in a variety of different shapes. Just like men. And the even more astonishing part is that it’s perfectly acceptable for men (and other women, for that matter) to be attracted to skinny girls, to medium girls, and to large girls. Bigger women, smaller women, average women – they’re perfectly normal and beautiful just the way they are.

Now I must ask this: why, as a girl with one completed degree and another one the way, with an assortment of other talents ranging from singing show tunes to rearing the most adorable felines on the planet, with an eclectic taste in film and music, with a heart as big as a grand canyon, should I feel compelled to defend myself because my butt happens to be bigger than Emma Stone’s?

I shouldn’t. Because some girls are bigger than others. 

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2013-2013.

The Right Side of Crazy

Here’s the thing about your twenties: they suck.

 Not it sucks. They suck. Your twenties don’t just suck as a decade. Every single year in your twenties sucks in a new and different way. Ways that will make you doubt the notion that your life has to improve at some point because you will, in fact, be forced to throw yourself from a bridge otherwise. Or, in the case of the Putnam County barnyard town I live in, trip off the gangplank crossing over a needle-infested shallow creek.

Okay. Maybe it’s not that bad.

But, suffice it to say, your twenties really do suck. Although I didn’t make up the intravenous needle part. I live in a weird place.

As a teenager, you spend a heap load of time thinking about college – how smart you need to be to get there, which ones are worth your (parents’) money, how cool you’ll look drinking coffee in the campus café, whether or not you’ll finally lose your virginity. (Well, perhaps that was just me.) The future seems all glittery and hazy and inevitable.  You have some quasi-plausible life planned out in which you’re wealthy and educated and all of your pants are perfectly pleated. When you’re that far away, everything looks perfect. But let’s be real: the devil’s in the details.

The whole situation is even worse if you happen to have been born a girl. For whatever reason, American culture prepares girls to live a twenty-something life born of Prada bags and cucumber wraps. Apparently, the moment you hit twenty, you become ultra-chic and infinitely more interesting. If sitcoms and romantic comedies are right, you’ll suddenly start wearing smart slacks and all your jewelry will match. Let me stop you right here: that’s a total lie.

Being a twenty-something woman is a far more complicated business. In those ten years, a number of adult-like things will happen to you, and you will have no real understanding of exactly how you should handle said things. People get married, people break up, people have babies, people die, you lose a job, you get a job, you find out your boyfriend is gay. It happens. You finally realize, somewhere in those years, it may be tremendously fun to throw all-nighters in your shoebox-sized apartment and watch as glittered confetti falls through the air just for the hell of it, but eventually it lands. And somebody’s got to vacuum. As a rule of thumb, this will be the point when you realize you only have access to a mop.

No one really prepares you for the weirdness of your twenties – the way life suddenly stops making sense and your views on everything from deodorant to gun control undergo a massive shift. No one sits you down when you’re nineteen and says, “Listen, sparky, the shit’s about to get really fucking strange. Hang in there, soldier.” Instead, being in your twenties is something akin to being stuck in the middle of a perpetual earthquake; you can’t really do anything but watch as your hand-crafted string art shakes off the wall. You won’t have an evacuation plan ready for the moment you realize being a twenty-something is, more often than not, really awkward because NO ONE TELLS YOU.

In all actuality though, that’s probably a good thing. Who among us would willingly march headfirst into that most agonizing decade armed with little more than six years of abstinence-only education and How I Met Your Mother reruns? Luckily, our culture doesn’t prepare us for the sheer ridiculousness to come in those ten years following our teens. Because, when you do finally realize that you are not likely to end up hanging out in the local bar with your friends every night until 3 AM looking like a J. Crew model, the desire to be a twenty-something quickly evaporates. Who wants to be poor, unsteady, and confused? No one sane, that’s for damn sure.

I realize this all sounds dire. The truth is it feels dire sometimes. Most days in my twenties have been marked by my complete lack of interest in the daily routines of my life. Hygiene? Optional. Leaving my couch? Not applicable. Work? Well, okay. I do really like to eat. That ridiculously expensive gourmet mustard I have to spread on my turkey sandwiches isn’t just going to appear in my mailbox – which I hardly ever check anyway since my twenties have also been hallmarked by junk mail. Truly, Capital One, if I didn’t answer you the first time, chances are I’m not going to answer you the second time. Spare the o-zone layer and leave that tree alone.

BUT, don’t worry. I know, I know. Now that I’ve told you how awful your twenties really are, don’t worry?? Bitch. Seriously, though. Don’t throw it all away just yet.

To be honest, I don’t always feel like I’m lost in the pages of an on-going Phyllis Reynolds Naylor novel. There are usually some very nice people along the way who are sympathetic to the plight of the miserable first world twenty-something to give you pointers and a pair of clean underwear. Plus, even when I do feel completely bewildered, some of the wandering isn’t so terrible. I’ve met some of the most fantastic people I’ve ever known or will ever know during my twenties. I’ve been in school for the better part of the decade, and it’s perfectly acceptable. I’m a student. I’m acquiring knowledge for…whatever is I’m going to do with my future. Relatively speaking, my body is functioning at top notch (although my liver has taken a considerable beating). No one questions me if I get silly tattoos or wear heels just a little too slutty for work or if I rock a Hello Kitty headband every now and then. I can decide to change my bathroom shower curtain on a whim with no complaints. Well, minimal complaints. My felines are exceedingly OCD.

The point is I can. It’s one of the perks of being a twenty-something with little more to my name than the apartment I can barely afford and a rare used-bookstore copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: I can go searching. My life, the life of any twenty-something with a modicum of self-awareness, is a wide open space. Sure, there are lots of paths to choose from, some bright and well-lit and some that look as if they may or may not be hosting a colony of Ted Bundy-esque serial murders. And sure, on more than one occasion I’ve been the token white girl with a flashlight and a low cut t-shirt who falls over a tree stump just as the deranged mass murderer pops out of the brush with his blood-soaked machete. But, the beauty of all this mixed-up twentyness is that I can be that clumsy, albeit dumb, youth. I can because I’m in my twenties and I’m allowed to fuck up.

So maybe I don’t do everything effortlessly. Honestly, I will probably always be the girl who carries a flashlight in a desolate corn field when I should be the next road over picking wild flowers or having relations with vampires or whatever it is girls do in in abandoned fields when they aren’t being chased by one of the seemingly inordinate number of crazed killers on the loose.

And maybe I’ve definitely executed some questionable moral decisions. There’s a whole sub-section of my twenties I’ve termed The Rum Diaries. (Mind you, my liver hasn’t quit on me yet, so I’m just going to assume this blessed trend is meant to continue.) 

Maybe I’m not living in New York, frequenting the best art museums, drinking the finest coffee, wearing the trendiest clothes, writing the next profound works of American literature. But I’m here and I’m young and I can.

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2013-2013].