response 38 of 69:

Oct 11 11:49 UTC 1999

It's the ideal picture, the unreachable, super model type of beauty
that pushes ordinary people (with common worries and joys) into the
pit of bodily despair.
I am not really dissatisfied with the way I look. I like my body to be 
tight (at least). No muscles, but no obesity either. As long as I feel 
physically fit, I am doing fine.
Beauty is what you feel about yourself. When you feel 
pretty/handsome/gorgeous/sexy etc., you are pretty etc. because you will
 radiate this to the outside world, who will notcie it. Over the years I
have come to terms with the fact that I am skinny, and  that I no matter
what excercise I put into it, no muscles will develop,  no sixpack for a
stomach. On a whole I feel good about myself.

The hard part is the coming to terms with your own flaws when the media 
are all about beautiful people. Just take alook at the average soap or 
movie.
That's why it's a good thing that a sitcom like Roseanne became so 
popular. The people pictured are much closer to reality than, let's say 
the Bold and the Beautiful, even though the characters in Roseanne are 
witty beyond reality.

response 40 of 69:

Oct 12 18:35 UTC 1999

Sounds like you've raised a confident daughter, Michael... I was a total 
bag of insecurities when I was 13. 

response 42 of 69:

Oct 12 23:54 UTC 1999

Staci is 12.

Staci split her head open just below the hair line, dead center; school wanted
us to take her to the Dr and have it stitched; STeve brought her to me at work
and I tape stitched it (it was only about 3/4" long and superficial, just
bleed like crazy as head wounds are apt to do).  She has a scar you really
have to look for to see.  She's proud of it.  She also fractured her arm in
that little episode and the school said nothing about the arm.

My sister gave Staci her old bike when she got a new one.  The first time
Staci took it out she didn't realize just how much of a slope our apartment
building is on and it sort of got away from her.  She came in with a chuck
of flesh out of her knee.  I finally got it cleaned out and bandaged it up,
felt that it probably could use a couple of stitches since it was a bit
deeper than I like to tape stitch.  I called STeve to come home since it was
also bleeding quite a bit.  By the time he got home from Lansing it had pretty
much stopped bleeding so we just bandaged it up and sent her to bed.  As it
started healing she kept saying that she had a hole in her knee and how cool
that was.  She was very disappointed that the hole completely filled in and
the scar became faint.

The cyst she had removed from her shoulder developed a nasty ketoid type scar
that she thinks is really neat and often shows off by wearing spaghetti strap
tank tops.

response 44 of 69:

Oct 13 01:29 UTC 1999

Same here.  The only thing that seems to bother her is riding the AATA
alone.  She had to yesterday morning since she screwed up her alarm
and didn't get up on time and I have an 8am class with a quiz first
thing.  She said it was fun so that is over.

She does get very pissed at Damon when he calls her fat, but I think
she would get just as pissed if he called her skinny.  One of those
big brother, little sister things.  She is a bit pudgy, is aware of
it, but does worry about it much beyond saying that she should ride
her bike more.

response 46 of 69:

Oct 24 21:03 UTC 1999

"I'm happy I'm so rich!" vs. "I'm bummed that I'm broke" comes under
the same double standard (IMO).  What other attributes are considered
bad vs. okay to vocalize this way?

response 48 of 69:

Oct 26 00:27 UTC 1999

Is this something to do with the evil eye.  (You must not praise anyone or
the evil eye will find them.)
The trick is to tell someone else how nice they look and they will
reciprocate.

response 50 of 69:

Oct 26 17:41 UTC 1999

But for some people, it's difficult to accept compliments.  It takes effort
for me to just say "thank you" rather than disagreeing or getting defensive.
Not sure why that is.

response 52 of 69:

Oct 26 23:30 UTC 1999

I get that with the "Ooh you've lost weight" compliment... most of the 
time I haven't lost weight. It's either the clothes or maybe I've lost 
inches, but not weight. Not sure how to respond because if I say "No, I 
haven't!" it's interpreted as: "Nooo! I'm a big fat cow!", when I'm just 
saying I have not actually lost weight. I usually respond with a "Dunno, 
I don't have a scale at home." Which is the truth. 

response 54 of 69:

Oct 30 05:22 UTC 1999

People sometimes tell me they like a t-shirt I'm wearing, but that's not
really the same sort of thing.  I don't think anyone's ever complimented me
out of the blue on "real" clothing I'm wearing.  Of course, given the amount
of effort I put into what I wear, that's hardly surprising....

response 56 of 69:

Oct 30 16:31 UTC 1999

Meaning when I get a compliment on a t-shirt, it's because someone thinks the
slogan is funny, not because they think I've got amazing fashion sense.
"Real" probably was the wrong choice of words.

response 58 of 69:

Oct 30 23:16 UTC 1999

Orinoco, if some friend said they liked the way your hair looked today, how
would you respond?

response 60 of 69:

Oct 31 02:29 UTC 1999

I'd ask them what they thought if I shaved it all off.  ;)  I've been known
to do that sort of thing.

response 62 of 69:

Nov 9 01:23 UTC 1999

Re 50: I'm the same way about compliments.  I try to dismiss them as much
as possible.  I don't know quite why, and on some logical level I know
it's silly.  Last year in a writing workshop class I was taking, the class
was commenting on things they liked about one of my essays, and I kept
instinctively responding with comments like, "Well, thank you, but this is
really very rough and I was just sort of making it up as I was going along
and..."  Finally one of my friends who was in the class took me aside and
said, "You know, Sara, you don't need to argue when people say nice things
about your writing.  It's really okay to let them compliment you."  But
this doesn't naturally occur to me - I think somehow, instinctively, I do
assume that the evil eye is going to get me or some such.

With myself it's mostly *skills* that I feel defensive about being
complimented about -- whether writing or photography or underwater
basketweaving or whatever.  Maybe I just have trouble thinking of myself
as a creative person, or maybe it's just an awareness that even at things 
I can do sort of well there is still so much to learn. When I *give*
compliments to others, though, it's
the compliments on how they look that I notice being refuted the most.
Somehow allowing oneself to think, "hmm, I look nice today," makes them
feel guilty, as if that statement were the same as "I am the most
beautiful person in the universe and everyone should worship me as a
goddess."  I've noticed this more with physical than with other
attributes.  Not sure why this is.