Well, what do you know?

I believe in personal comfort. I like to wear clothes that are comfortable. If what I'm wearing is uncomfortable, then I'm going to take it off or fix the problem. And in doing so, I've started to notice something: I cause a number of reactions in the people around me.

As an example: I am a person who hates hot weather, and I'm spending most of my time in an area where the average late summer/early fall temperatures hover in the 80s. I don't wear shorts, because I'm not a fan, so I run around in jeans and tanktops or t-shirts. I still get too hot. In my dorm room, I'll usually lose the top and lounge in jeans and a sportsbra. The kind that looks like a spaghetti-strap top cut off at the ribs.

If you look at the summer fashions common on campus, there are plenty of girls who show a LOT more skin while walking around in public.

I am by no means physically perfect. Given that societal norms involve being painfully skinny, with hair like so and proportions like so and eyes this color, 5'8'' of big-boned, curvaceous, somewhat chubby redhead is not going to just blend. As such, I have two options: desperately try to hide what I am and fit in, or say 'to hell with you, society. I like me and there's nothing you can do about it'. Yeah, I went with the second one.

Now, if I'm lounging around in an outfit that more than meets requirements for decency, I'm not going to scramble to put a shirt on if a friend drops by or my roommate returns- no complaints means no changing my habits. What happens when other people are outside is interesting...

Typically, if there is another girl outside when I open the door and am standing there in the aforementioned bra and baggy jeans, one of several things happens:

• The girl stares, shocked
  
• The girl looks disgusted
• The girl tries to ignore me
• The girl makes a hasty getaway
• The girl looks distinctly uncomfortable

The same happens when people are in the room visiting my roommate. There are covert glances my way and sometimes disbelieving looks. After watching all this and observing what society has to say about what a woman should look and act and think like, I have come to a conclusion:

In doing what I do and being happy with what I look like, I calmly take a sledgehammer to the pillars of the hierarchy of young women. According to the social system we pick up in middle school, the more perfect and conforming to fashion you are, the better you are, so that only those who strive to be exact replicas of women who pose for a living can rule. This system leaves the most self-conscious twits in power, and those who aren't good enough in no position to help themselves. I, however, am big, cuddly, pale, freckled, scarred, a little pudgy, bespectacled, have tan lines, have uneven nails, have calluses, and am not ashamed.

I intimidate the girls who can't imagine being happy without being perfect.

And I don't care.

A list

Exactly as the title claims, this is a list. What of? More like what not of. I've put all kinds of things on it. It's just that kind of day.

1. Perfume is a small-scale chemical weapon and should therefore be banned from enclosed spaces.
2. 12 red roses can make a cheap blue plastic pitcher look like it was actually meant as a vase
3. Building a massive virtual house: 3 hours. Furnishing it: Another hour. Setting the characters from your book loose in a home designed for them: Rewarding
4. Wii Bowling rocks
5. Rain is awesome
6. Kitties can fix any problem, so long as they hold still long enough
7. There is early, and there is EARLY, and early only ever happens to other people
8. Golf bags are accidents waiting to happen
9. Being comfortable with your body, even if it doesn't meet society's ideals, is a good way to tick off all the self-conscious girls on your floor.
10. You can listen too far into instructions
11. Cuddles fix everything that a cat can't
12. Engineers are weird
13. Twisting the norm is fun
14. Storms are humbling, awe-inspiring, and beautiful
15. You are never too old to jump in puddles
16. You can never have too many house plants
17. Scars are good things. They are proof that we have leaped on life, wrassled it to the ground, gotten our butt handed to us, and gone back for more.
18. Everything inspires
19. A little mess is conducive to the imagination
20. You are never too old for animated movies