The Daily Durvy

Recently I joined Group Therapy for women with eating disorders. “Group” is a little deceiving; really it’s 6 girls and 2 therapists sitting around on Friday mornings chatting about our horribly fucked up relationships with food. Why Friday mornings? Because therapy is supposed to be a little bit masochistic.

On first glance most people do not think I have an eating disorder. I come off as friendly, charming, a little batshit crazy, and well-rounded. While I am some of those things, I am also a binge eater and drinker. I sometimes starve myself for days and sometimes I go to the gym twice (or more) in one day. I have refused to leave the house because I thought I was too disgusting to be seen. I will lie about these behaviors, and sometimes not even Alex knows when or how I do some of these things.

I am telling you all of this, dear Internet, because I don’t think this is something I need to hide. I’m not shameful. As I tell my therapist, I have lots of guilt and very little shame.

My body issues stem from deep insecurities about, well, everything. I am hypercritical of myself, my abilities, and my self-worth. Alex is extremely supportive and tells me how crazy I am but all of insecurity still comes out as extreme body hate. Like BMX extreme. Like if there were Olympics of body hate I would totally have the gold medal.

The question on my mind for the last few days has been the epic Harry and Sally question: can a girl and a boy be “just friends?”

By just friends, people usually mean no sexual attraction, no sexual thoughts, no long walks on the beach while holding hands, and the ability to eat lethal amounts of Chinese food while discussing sexual fantasies positions partners. Partners that are not each other, obviously. Obviously.

Most people are extremely indignant about this particular discussion:

Feminist: Men are incapable of complicated relationships that two people of different genders can carry on. They all have mother issues and vagina envy.

Freud: I’m with her.

Man: Women are hotttt… maybe I could just be her friend if she’s ugly. Probably not. I’d still want to bang her.

Frued: Wait… Vagina envy? No, you, my dear, have penis envy.

Feminist: Shut up.

Man: I’d fuck her.

Me: Whaaa????

I usually point out the fact that I had several close male friends in high school. Then leave out the part where I had huge, debilitating crushes on a few of them and the ones I didn’t want to jump on and lick during lunch period wanted to take me behind the middle school and impregnate me. (Points if you got the reference.)

However, I think I make an interesting point without even trying. (What a fucking surprise, right? Me? Clueless?) I think the question is wrong. Instead of asking if men and women could be “just friends,” we should be asking if women and men can be friends despite the fact that there is or at one point will be some (sometimes obvious) sexual tension?

And I think that answer is a resounding yes.

Did I have HUGE, EMBARRASSING crushes on my male friends in high school? YES. Were we still friends? HELL YES.

(There is a really good story about this one guy, Sean, that I wanted to jump the summer before college. We got to be pretty good friends, then I tried to kiss him, he wasn’t really interested, and we REMAINED pretty good friends until we went off to college. THAT. IS. SKILL. It’s how I learned how not be awkward.)

(Just kidding! I’m still awkward! :D)

On Friday, I was at cocktail with Alex and I was talking to one of my (male) friends and I told him that if I wasn’t with Alex, I would totally date him. Why did I do that? I’m going to blame it on the “Long Island Iced Tea” I ordered that ended up being watered down tequila in a cup. Does it matter that I told him? Maybe. But the point is, I’m still friends with him, even though he now knows that I would date him.

So eat your hearts out, Har and Sal.

Thoughts?

A few days ago, I picked up The Lolita Effect by M. Gigi Durham, P.hD. I have not put it down since.

(I would like to take a moment to point out that I took the quarter off of school, and am yet using my leisure time and money to buy and read Women Studies discourse.)

(Because I am a loser like that.)

Durham’s argument is that 5 myths of sexuality creating by mass media have led to a confusing over-sexualizing of young girls. Because sex sells. And even in this sexual climate, parents and teachers and most adults in general have a really hard time talking about the sexuality of children, particularly female children.

Durham is a BAMF.

I have an intense fascination with the politics of sexuality and over-simplification of sex as a subject (ie the denial of politics in sexuality). It is so painfully obvious to see marketed sexuality, but because of complex rhetoric it is hidden in plain sight. The people I see, college students, are especially vulnerable to this ideology. College is a “culture of romance” which translates directly into a “culture of hooker-chic fuck me boots and the biggest cup of rum I can find.” Because we college students can read between the lines. Romance? Wha? OH! You mean PROSTITUTE. OBVIOUSLY.

I hate being sick. The tricky thing about it is that even when you think you’re feeling better, you’re not.

I have run-down and gross for the last week, and had to skip two shifts at work. Finally, yesterday, I dragged my butt into work to make up some hours so I can get paid my paltry salary in checks that are over $100. About 5 hours into my 8 hour shift, I was done. Done-zo to be exact. I all of a sudden, couldn’t stand up, move, or process information. I felt like my head was going to explode.

So I left.

I hate leaving early. When I start something, I want to finish it. But, at the end of the day, taking care of yourself is more important than going to work. This a lesson that I have a hard time with, which is not at all surprising. Not to go all Gloria Steinem on your ass, but women throughout history take care of everything but themselves. It’s gender socialization.

To some extent, it makes sense. Keeping the home (and lots of children) were necessary to a family’s survival. A woman needed to be the cook, maid, caregiver, gardener, seamstress; the list goes on for pages. While these are still tasks that need to be completed for the family to thrive, it no longer only rests on the women in the family to perform all of these functions. Well, it does, but there is no real reason. It is simply residual socialization and division of labor left over from the classic 1950′s era ideology of the family.

Even today, if a wife and mother has a job/career, many are subject to the “second shift.” When a woman comes home from work, she is still expected to take care of her house, children, and husband (not necessarily in that order). She is expected to cook, clean, and take care of the house-wifey aspect of running a home, even if she has had a long day at work, just like her male partner.

Simply put: women don’t care of themselves and try to put everyone else first. I believe that this comes from a history of subjugated women, put in roles that demand attention to everyone else in the family, leaving very little time for women to take care of themselves.

Thoughts?

(Keep in mind, this does not happen in ALL families, or in ALL partnerships, but as a general archetype, this happens a lot!)

At the beginning of last year, I bought a whole new bedroom set from Ikea. At least, I tried to.

Because it was the beginning of a school year, and because the Ikea I go to is smack dab in between UC Davis and Sacramento State University, they were out of dressers. And not just the dresser I wanted. ALL DRESSERS. If it had drawers, it was on backorder.

My dad and I stood in Ikea, scratching our heads for a while, and then it hit us. WE’LL BUY A BOOKSHELF AND THE DRAWERS THAT GO IN IT. Only at Ikea would that be possible. And it was genius.

However, it turned out to be the shittiest dresser I have ever encountered. The drawers were deep, and CLEAR. As in, you could see my underwear without even trying. It sucked.

After a few days of digging through drawers as deep as the depths of my soul (sort of) for a fresh pair of underwear, I figured I had 2 options:

1. Wear only dirty underwear that I had already pulled out of the the “dresser” (I use the term loosely, like a porn star’s vagina), or
2. Never put my underwear away and instead organize it into piles all over my room.

I obviously opted for the first one.

Just kidding.

That would have been gross.

Instead, I spent a year wading around in a sea of my underwear. Even the granny panties that EVERY woman owns.

Because that wasn’t gross.

Just kidding.

At the beginning of this year, my dad and I went back to Ikea to get a dresser. And they had it. It was glorious. You can’t see my panties anymore! And they weren’t on the floor! SIMPLE PLEASURES, PEOPLE. SIMPLE.

However, since moving into my new apartment, my bed has been not a bed. One morning, it simply came apart. The right sideboard just popped out of the footboard and laid there LIKE THE WHORE THAT IT IS. My whole bed leaned to the right. For weeks.

Alex and I finally took the whole damn thing apart, tried to plug the stripped sideboard with some sort of putty and then re-drilled a screwhole and yadda yadda yadda. It was fixed. Sweet.

Not sweet. This time, 3 out of 4 corners were wobbly. None of them came completely undone, but simply squeeked and made my life a living hell. I woke up in the middle of the night with dreams of me being crushed by my monster bed, swaying and squeeking and generally being a bitch.

So here I am, sitting on the floor, with my bed in pieces for the second time in 6 months, waiting for putty to dry so I Alex can put the whole damn thing back together and pray to God that it SHUTS THE FUCK UP.