She’s super stressed with family stuff so I’m back at doing this alone. I can’t wait until I live in a nicer area of town where it’s okay to go jogging in the morning or at night. I really miss my old gym. :/  

Once upon a time — before URLs, handles, likes and shares — I put some good old-fashioned postage stamps inside an envelope and sent away for a zine (made of actual paper!) that was filled with some very big ideas. I was 16 and the zine was called i’m so fucking beautiful, a title that hooked me instantly because at the time I was quite literally starving myself of that sentiment. I was all punk rock by day, but I had a couple of dirty secrets that did not exactly jibe with the Manic Panic and combat boots:

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Don’t worry I still intend to eat, but when I’m work I pretty much have little  break time and no where I can store any food. So taking food that gets hot while I’m running around is no fun and spending $10 a day on cafeteria salads. SO sick of salads. So I’m choosing between herbalife or Chike nutrition. I’ll let you guys know what I think when I get it. 

I am like disgustingly broke. Literally about $6 to my name and I don’t get paid for 6 more days. I just… don’t even know how I’m gonna get around. 

It’s a frequent question: Can I eat quinoa … or beans, or brown rice, or sweet potatoes? Or how about amaranth, sorghum, and buckwheat? Surely corn on the cob is okay!

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Took a day, but now my back and biceps are killing me. Time to repair. 

When I discuss owning your privilege a lot of people get upset. Yes I’m usually talking with white people, or straight people, or thin people. There’s a beauty and a kind of clarity that comes from understanding just how fucked up the world is. Let me explain. 

I’m a multi-racial fair skinned person and I never understood the anger and hatred I got from black people as a child until I began to understand the facets of white privilege that I benefit from and how unfair it is to dark skinned people. It’s not fair that darker girls at my job are rude cause of my complexion, but I understand their rage. It’s misappropriated rage but I understand it. It sucks for them when I walk into a room and some guy gushes about “long natural hair” or  how hot he feels light skinned girls are, or how so many black male celebrities not only uplift women who look like me but tear down black women in their music and by example. (Lil Wayne and Drake I am talking to you jerkfaces)

When I wear my hair natural, it’s curly and cute, people want to touch it and run their hands through it. When my best friends do the same, they are unkempt and wild. It doesn’t matter that some of these friends have Masters degrees, and I don’t have even a bachelors. Society assumes I’m the one worth respecting because of how I look, and that’s bullshit.

When I walk into the corner store 3 blocks away, the asian owners don’t send their kids to follow me around but anytime a black man comes in… he’s suspect. Not because I’m a regular, I’ve maybe been in there about 5 times in the past 8 months. Just because I look a little bit more safe.

Police walk up to me to ask if I’m alright, lord knows in NY if you’re brown the police walk up to you to tell you they’re going to frisk you and you’ve got no say in it.

The inequalities based purely on complexion are astounding. 

It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I can’t change my hair texture and skin color nor would I want to. It just means that I recognize the unfair advantages I get for being closer to the societal norm than they are. I am also able bodied, cis-gendered, an acceptable version of queer (cause everyone loves bi girls for some dumb reason) conventionally attractive and adequately educated with the ability to seek more education. I have it better than a lot of people in this country and the world. 

Checking your privilege means noticing these inequalities and when given the opportunity, making sure you let people know that it’s wrong. When you check your privilege from now on you can’t say “I didn’t know”. Never again will I just sit by and let people diss my friends for wearing their hair the way it grows out of their heads. Never again will I join in on the joking that enforces the social norm that something is wrong with who they were born to be. I’m not perfect, but at least I know when I slip up and try to make it better. That’s all you can do, and all anyone wants you to do. 

Tooooooooottttttaaaalllllllyy hating the detox process right now. 

Don’t spend an entire people drinking and eating things you shouldn’t.  

So for a few weeks now I have been trying like MAD to motivate all my friends around me who are all “we want to lose weight with you Brittany”. Finally after pretty much everyone waited too long on the color run and it sold out and my one friend yet again pushed off going to the gym with me I put up an ad on craigslist to find a chick local to my area who I can work out with. After loads of questionable responses I just met someone who I think I’ll do well with. We like like 5 miles from each other, she’s training for a 5k thats the day before mine and also a color run and she seems super nice and we’ve already scheduled 4 days to work out in the coming weeks. We’re gonna take it slow since I’m just getting back in the groove of things but I am SO EXCITED! 

Also sidenote: I went to weekend party and drank WAAAAAAAY too much and ate lots of bread and am up like 10 pounds in water weight, so yeah… time to get back on the grind this week! Gonna grocery shop on my way home from work tomorrow and stick to the plan! Also now I’m gonna get to use my new blender as well!