I can’t remember I if dreaded getting on the scale. But after the heavy thunk of the big weight, and the tinny back and forth of the smaller one, I heard a number. Eighty-nine. I weighed eighty-nine pounds. And somehow, I knew that eighty-nine pounds was a terrible weight to be.

In retrospect, that “somehow” isn’t so hard to trace. It’s a messy confection of family, hunger, love, food, power, unrealistic cultural standards of beauty, and how annoyed I felt when I started to grow breasts, because they got in the way when I played soccer.  (That was a bit later. And I’ve reconciled with my breasts and now I like them.)

​Knowing that I weighed eighty-nine pounds didn’t stop me from playing hard, from running up and down the soccer field in 100 degree heat. Usually, my body wasn't something I thought about; it was something that did things. It moved. I rode my bike as far as my parents would let me (sometimes, a little farther). I went rollerskating up and down the biggest hills in my neighborhood. 

My sophomore year in high school, I auditioned for the school musical, and as an enthusiastic chorus member, I started to hang out with the “theatre group." I knew that other girls made themselves throw up, because sometimes there were two or three of them together in the bathroom closest to the auditorium. I’m sure it wasn’t just a theater thing, or just a girls’ thing.

Super Shitty Art is extremely similar to my 80% Manifesto, but so much more fun to say. Check out my friend/hero Eri's Instagram feed, supershittyart, to experience the drawings that started a world-wide wide movement. Well, a Durham movement, that's sure to break out soon. My attempts to comprehend/explore my relatively new passion, astrophysics, through super shitty paintings, were featured in the Mercury Studio Instagram feed. I'm so proud. And so grateful to be a part of a community of such an amazing group of people. Best-coworking space, ever.