I don't think I truly realized how un-pretty I was until I hit middle school and I started hearing the word "ugly" tossed around. Insulated by the constant comfort that I just didn't really care about being popular or having boys like me I mostly ignored the taunts about my weird hair and the clothes I wore. I tried my best to just read during recess (when I was allowed to) and homeroom and just pretended the world around me did not exist.

I was lucky that my being teased was not 24/7 and only a matter of who was around at the wrong time. Art class was fun, for instance, because I had nice classmates there and at our table we would always talk about Duran Duran or Boy George before the last bell rang. Plus, our teacher was awesome. She encouraged us to be free spirits with our drawing. Of course the very fact that I liked my teachers and did well in school was also part of why I was such an easy target.

It was always the girls who were cruel, not the boys. Sure, some of the boys would say mean things and call me "weirdo" or "brillo pad" or "orphan Annie," but it was the girls who got violent or really knew how to hurt with their words. I remember one girl threatening me for not letting her copy off me during a test. I was afraid and started running down the hall when a small group of the kids who always tried to sneak cigarettes in during lunch stood in front of me and the girl to buzz off. To this day, I have an affinity for smokers.

I am very grateful that I was a teenager in the 80s and not now when social media can mean being bullied long after the school day is over. The worst part about not being pretty and the way people treat you because of that isn't the cruelness experienced in middle school for being different. That pain goes away in time and, in some ways, can make you stronger and more ready for what comes later. 

Sometimes the girl who isn't asked out all school who becomes invisible later on in life. I think I grew into my non-looks so that instead of being picked on I just became a non-entity in the world of love and romance. And, in a way, I'm almost grateful to the teasers for helping me learn early in life that I may always be a wallflower...and that I'm okay with that.

Still, for those who are tormented much worse than I was, the damage is not always slight: 


http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201010/sticks-and-stones-hurtful-words-damage-the-brain

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201010/sticks-and-stones-hurtful-words-damage-the-brain 

Some things to look forward to...

Nylon is for a younger crowd (I'd say 20somethings through early 30s) but the magazine always has great book and music reviews. I've already listened to "I'm Not Falling Asleep" and can't wait to hear the rest of the album when it's released on February 3rd.

Funny Girl by Nick Hornby is getting lots of buzz and is mini-reviewed below as is Miranda July's The First Bad Man.

The lyrics aren't very long, but they get to the point and along with the music reach a sadness that can really pull at your heart:
     

When will I ever be safe from myself
If the danger all lies between heaven and hell?
When I close my eyes, I'm not falling asleep,
I am opening drawers, I am sifting through papers.

Please stay a while, I'm not falling asleep

Though it's well after the holidays, I still enjoyed Joanne Lee's holiday tale a lot. Adorable, plus incredibly sweet and tender, An Unexpected Gift is indeed unexpected in just how nice it is. 

In between the sweet, though, is a lot of sorrow. The main character lost her the love of her life five years ago and has never been the same since. Most of her days are spent being the "queen of mean" while her nights are ones of drinking by herself:

Solitude had not only been her safety net over the past several years; she had also craved it. Sometimes she wondered if working all day and returning all alone to an empty home even consisted of living.

I had no clue something so tiny (it's under 50 pages) could be so huge in delivery. My only complaint would be that I wish it had been longer. Otherwise, this is a lovely treat with wonderful characters and a welcome read, no matter what time of year! :)

Sunday papers, late...

This afternoon I'm reading all the Sunday papers from yesterday that originate from Britain. Some of the more interesting articles follow below. I can really relate to the first one because I'm horrible at multi-tasking and yet I continually do it. There's a part about our impulse control suffering when we try to do too much at once. I also (wish though that I didn't) can relate to that way too well...


Daniel J. Levitin says: "We've created more information in the past few years than in all of human history before us." No wonder we can be so frazzled at times.

This fascinating article looks at just what technology is doing to our brains and how harmful it can be:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/18/modern-world-bad-for-brain-daniel-j-levitin-organized-mind-information-overload


And something on Debra Messing, who talks about meeting Meryl Streep and the ever-present popularity of "Grace":

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/17/debra-messing-this-much-i-know

 I am pretty much smitten with Beginnings. Ash is one of the most appealing, all-around likable and caring characters I've encountered in a novel in ages. It's easy to see why Lou adores her, though Lou herself, with her bursts of anger and fits of jealousy as an adult, tries my patience at times.

As with her other tales, L.T. Smith captures the pain and awkwardness of insecurity like no one else does. Meshing such intense self-doubt with such a pure love that seems destined from the day the two young girls meet makes all that insecurity much more believable...after all, those of us who question our worth the most are bound to feel we don't deserve the very love we most crave.

Perhaps because there is a lot of pain in here I can relate to I didn't laugh as much as I did when I read L.T. Smith's absolutely amazing See Right Through Me. There are definitely moments where you laugh, but your heart ends up aching more than your stomach does.

Even so, Beginnings is breathtaking when it comes to emotions. The reader is there with Lou as she struggles through childhood, her teens and then life as an adult. She may not always be the most composed or even mature, but she is very real. This line, for instance, is all too familiar:

"I flirt, I am a flirt, but the kind that is shocked when flirting actually works. The kind that when a woman smiles at me in an empty room, I still look over my shoulder just to make sure she’s smiling at me, then look back over it a second time."

Oddly enough (or maybe not, if you have ever been in Lou's shoes) it's the first half of the novel that has most lingered with me. Young Lou is someone your heart just breaks for as she agonizes over her own appeal, what it's like to be in love with someone you shouldn't (or think you shouldn't) and how on earth she's going to move on after losing the best friend she has ever known.

Another constant for Lou (that helps me sympathize with her even when she's a bit maddening) is how she battles her own emotions and longs to master them in certain situations, especially when it comes to Ash, whom she is convinced would "freak" if she knew about her love.

"There was no way I could have done that. I just had to tighten the reins on my feelings, be more careful with what I let show. I would have to learn how to do that. And quickly. But I know for definite—in that split second she held my gaze, she must have seen everything I had tried so hard to keep hidden."

I absolutely love how Beginnings comes full circle, the pop culture references that you might remember from your own childhood, the writing itself and how you can just fall into this story as if it is actually real life. As always when I finish anything by L.T. Smith, I hope there's more around the corner soon! :)