Soap Box

We watch a lot of "The Big Bang Theory" in our house. It's on whenever we need random background noise.

The other day though, one line in particular seemed to jump out at me. I stand in the kitchen, puzzled. Surely I didn't just hear what I thought I heard, right?

Just to be on the safe side, I check with Ricky.

"Did Amy Farrah Fowler just say she was 130 pounds?"

"Uh, yeah. I think so."

Huh. Knowing what little I know about Mayim Bialik in her everyday life I wonder if that's true. Or if it's just a random number the script writers threw in there thinking it sounded right for a (formerly) sheltered female scientist. Considering how straightforward she seems to be, and the fact that she's a bit shorter than me, I suppose it may be true. After all, the women in Hollywood - especially her costars - are freakishly teensy.

For those of you who have never seen the show, there are three consistent females in the cast: Penny, Bernadette and Amy.

• Penny started out as the stereotypical hot, blonde neighbor, but has developed over time into someone who can hold her own when it comes to putting the guys in their place. She's still hot though, and her costumes tend to lean this way. 
• Bernadette is a scientist with a little squeaky voice, but a big scary yelling voice when mad. She's described often as pocket-sized (she's very short and cute so this is understandable), but admittedly "stacked" as her husband's late mother called her once. 
• Amy is the dowdiest of the group - and I mean this in the nicest way possible as she's also hilarious and brilliant - but her costumes mostly consist of shapeless cardigans and calf-length skirts. Out of the three of them, she's presented as the DUFF. If you don't know what that is, you can look it up.

Anyway...

Obviously this thought has stuck with me for a few days. And then this morning I had an epiphany, one that I needed to resort yet again to my good friend, Google, to confirm.

In the Bridget Jones' Diary series, the character is constantly referring to herself as some form of fat. In order to play her in the first two movies, Renee Zellweger had to put on an alleged 20+ pounds. If you Google "Bridget Jones' weight" in an image search you'll find a ton of pictures of Renee side-by-side as a before and after playing the character. And yet, what is her weight described as in both the books and movies?

I'll give you a second.

Give up?

125-131 pounds.

Think I'm crazy? I'm not the only one who noticed this. Book Riot also picked up on this oddity almost four years ago.

Let that sink in. We're being told that 130 pounds is heavy.

I dunno about you, but that kind of makes me want to go all "Hulk smash."

What sort of a messed up world do we live in where the average woman (going on the average height of around 5'4" for American women) is told that 130 pounds is heavy? Yes, Bridget is technically British, but you know the publisher likely did that conversion for American audiences, much like "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was changed to "Sorcerer's Stone."

Please tell me someone else is getting angry.

130 pounds. Heavy.

I know my self-perception of my body is way off. Dancing for well over 20 years will do that to a person. (Side note: My friend Lacey just wrote a beautiful post that can explain this far more eloquently than I can.) But at 5' 7" and 169 pounds, I can safely say that I'm in the slightly overweight category.

Does my height help hide this better than some others - that depends on your perception: I say no, others sometimes doubt me (or they spare my feelings and say I'm lying while doing it themselves).

But still... 130 pounds as big seems insane to me. In fact, my dream weight is still heavier than that. Yeah, wrap your head around that one.

In the U.S., 20 million women, and 10 million men are estimated to have suffered from an eating disorder at some point in time in their lives. Maybe, we can take a small step in the right direction of remedying that by eliminating the idea of characters in our media being large when they're anything but.

130 pounds is. not. fat.

Westwood

"Thoughts on dinner?" 

I cringe. I hate this discussion. Hate. It. Loathe. Abhor. Despise.

Ricky and I are both relatively apathetic when it comes to food - me from a brief flirtation with anorexia in college, him from being tired of the one who has to cook most of the time (long story short, I've had a few disastrous cooking experiments so he tends to be a little trigger shy when it comes to me trying to cook new things. I insist it's the way to learn, he says his stomach disagrees 9 times out of 10) - so this is the conversation version of the spinning wheel of death.

"Um..."

I swear, I'm not avoiding the question. I'm actually racing through a bunch of ideas trying to come up with something, anything that will work, is easy to cook/clean up, relatively healthy, and something that C might eat.

A random list of ideas starts streaming from my mouth. I can picture Ricky's reaction on the other side of the phone. Tensing of the shoulders and an eye roll, as my list consists of things that I know I can cook, but that he's long burnt out on since my reliable repertoire is kind of limited.

"No, Lindsey."

"Well, what are your thoughts?"

This is my usual cop out answer. Whatever he suggests I'll normally agree to instantly. He knows it is, that's why (much to my frustration) he usually doesn't play into it.

What? I'll eat almost anything. He's a bit pickier so this is a guaranteed win because I know he'll eat it as it was his suggestion.

"I don't have any particular thoughts."

Damnit. I start Googling ideas, copying recipes that seem interesting - to me - into chat and sending them to him while trying to buy more time on the phone.

Eventually after a lot of back and forth, and endless amounts of frustration on both our parts, we come to a conclusion. It's not necessarily something that sounds amazing, but it'll do. Again, we're both pretty apathetic.

There has got to be a better way to figure out what we're doing for dinner.

Right?

Suggestions welcome. Seriously, if you have a favorite website with healthy, easy recipes please share.

C's bedroom floor

To start this entry off, I did a quick search for Eleanor Roosevelt quotes. There was one I had in mind - that I thought she had said - and while I haven't found that one yet I've quickly come to realize how smart she was. Especially when it comes to today's topic: self-doubt.

Here's the one I was looking for! Thanks, Bag-all.

This weekend, as per usual, my folks popped over for a bit to visit. While C was busy yanking every book off his shelf to bring over to my mom, she and I somehow got on the topic of high school.

Apparently, as a 30-year-old, whenever I think back on my younger self, I can't help but cringe and be filled with huge, overwhelming waves of regret. It's not that I was a bad kid, I wasn't. I was super involved with extra-curriculars, made good grades, worked and hung out with relatively "good" kids.

No, the issue is that I have issues with my own behavior and whatnot back then. I was obnoxious, sarcastic, judgey, if something didn't come easily I decided to half-ass my effort, etc. Typical teenage girl things. But still. I wish I could like issue one huge apology to anyone who might have had issues with me when I was younger. I had friends, but on reflection I'm not sure how.

Anyway, that brings me back to the quote above. Here I am, 13 years post high school graduation and I'm still worried about what others thought of me back then - high school and college. So much so to the point where yesterday I was telling my mom that I kind of regretted continuing trying out for plays and doing certain choirs while in school.

What the hell?

I loved that stuff.

I might not have been deemed as hot shit as I thought I should have been (Seriously, where does my ego come from when it comes to certain things? I wish I was always that self-confident), but I was still chosen for almost everything I went after. Most of which involved an audition process, ergo I was above average in these areas.

As I was busy going off on this tangent, Mom's sitting there with a small, amused smile on her face. She can tell that I'm having one of my "moments." When I've finished, she reaches out and takes the latest book offering from C, wraps her arms around him and pulls him into her lap.

"You know," she says, "everything happens for a reason. Your life has turned out exactly as it was meant to be. If you hadn't gone down those paths, you might not have met Ricky and then where would you be? This little guy probably wouldn't be here."

She blows a raspberry on my little hazel-eyed hellion's neck, causing him to squeal with laughter.

I normally hate that phrase with a passion, that and it is what it is, but I have to admit that she's right in this case. "Yeah, and I probably wouldn't have realized that I'm pretty good at content management. And I wouldn't have seen as much of the world as I have. I get it."

"Everything happens for a reason."

It does, and ol' Eleanor Roosevelt is right, too. No one is thinking of me as often as I worry they are.

Chances are that while some people, if they were to run into me again in public, might avoid me because of past interactions, most wouldn't even notice me. And if they did, and one of us happened to be feeling gregarious enough to say hi, then it would be a civil conversation between two people with a past commonality. That's about all there is to it.

So I leave you with this, another Eleanor Roosevelt quote:

I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

I might not be perfect, but damnit, I'm going to try to be the best me I can be. And I have that obnoxious teenage girl to thank for shaping me into who I am today. 

The master bedroom

(Author's note: I suck at coming up with titles, ask me how long it took to come up with the name for this damn blog, so to keep things simple I'm going with locations for titles at the moment.)

After turning off the lights and tip-toeing through the mine field that is our unfolded sock pile I finally slide into bed. Ricky's on his phone - probably reading reddit or something like that. A few chuckles escape him every now and then, but I've learned to not bother asking what's so funny. As a non-redditor chances are high I won't really "get it" anyway.

I can tell he's decided he's done for the night when the room goes pitch black. This is my sign it's time to say "good night."

I roll over and fumble in the dark for his face. When I find it I turn it toward me, leave a quick peck on the lips and then roll back to welcome slumber. He snuggles up beside me.

"Night. Love you."

A pause.

"Ricky?"

"Love you too," he mumbles. The dude falls asleep quickly, but this hesitation isn't that. He's always had a bit of issue with the L word. He willingly admits this.

A few moments pass, and then apparently he's got something on his mind that can't wait til the morning.

"Why do you always insist on doing that before bed? It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"You always say 'bye' and 'I love you' when leaving someone, even if it's just going to sleep," I protest. "You never know what could happen."

He's dubious. "In bed. What could happen?"

Oh boy. He should've known where I'd end up going with this. Especially since I've been in marketing for a hospital for almost a year now.

"Stroke, heart attack, aneurysm, any number of things really. You never know when your time is up."

Silence.

I shrug. He's probably fallen asleep by now. Not kidding when I said he does it in the blink of an eye.

"My mom always used to say that."

Now I pause. Ricky's mom passed when he was a senior in high school. So I'm assuming this is a good thing, but since I never met her I can't be sure. His relationship with her memory is a bit... rough at times.

"Well, it's probably the smartest thing your mom said then."

With that I roll over, kiss him a second time and snuggle down again. It's probably safe to say we both fall asleep within five minutes.

P.S. - apparently what I said last night struck a cord. This morning as we were packing C up for day care I was able to successfully get two goodbyes and love yous, without any hesitation. Though the second one did merit an eye roll. Whatever, I call it a win.

Why basic?

Picture the cliche, 30-year-old, female living in a large Midwestern city. She's probably married with pets, maybe a kid or two, a smidge overweight (if we're being honest) and awkward, but straightforward and friendly. Her tastes are basic: she loves boots and skinny jeans, coffee (Starbucks, particularly), fall weather, craft beer, Target is her favorite, she's obsessed with her town, her teams, etc. Got the image of what she looks, acts and sounds like in your head?  Good.

Hi, I'm Lindsey. I'm pretty basic, but I'm okay with that.

Language warning, Mom! Per Urban Dictionary.

I decided to start this blog because I have a lot of random thoughts and ideas that fly through my head, essay-style, so this was the best way to get it out. And since the best blogs tend to have themes, I needed one, too.

Possible blog ideas:

• Mommy-hood
• Exercise plan with a big end goal
• Personal change
• Pets
• Hobbies/arts & crafts

Notice a trend? They're all a little trite. Google any of these topics and you'll find tons of blogs and bloggers who have already covered these. Not that that's not admirable, especially if done well, but who wants to read the same thing over and over?

Not only that, but I tend to have the bad habit of starting something and not fully seeing it through to the end - at least in my personal life - so that makes for a random, piecemeal blog. Again, not something anyone really wants to read.

So instead I decided to go with the theme of basic. Why? Because it's me, in a nutshell. And, it allows the freedom to write about whatever topic happens to pop into my mind at the moment. Win-win!

So to anyone who happens to stumble across my little chunk of the Internet, welcome. Hopefully you're entertained. If no one finds this, at least I can finally get these essays out of my head and down on "paper."