How to Be Insecure

Hey Steph,


I figure I have enough historical experience of being insecure that I could be an expert, so I'd like to share some tips on being insecure.

1) Walk and stand slouched over. It's important to develop your insecurity by making sure everyone else believes you aren't worth the time of day either. After mastering this tool, you will look about ten to fifteen pounds heavier than you are; this along with your insecurity is really attractive to men.

Drew Herron

2) Tell yourself again and again and again that you are meaningless. Your brain is a fascinating organ that can do a ton of things, but I've found it is best to use any spare moment your brain has available to tell yourself something really mean. If you master this tool, you won't even have to work at doing this. Your thoughts will naturally tell you all the things you are terrible at, and they will naturally spiral into meaner and meaner things. It's important that you believe them all. For the sake of your insecurity, they are all true. Don't you dare doubt them. Also, makes sure you are exacting; don't forget to notice those itty-bitty imperfections.

Helga Weber

3) Compare your weaknesses to others' strengths. This one is very useful. Whenever you're feeling confident, start comparing yourself to others, but make sure you focus on your weaknesses. It makes sense to compare your flat, fine hair to someone else's voluminous mane as does it make sense to compare your shy approach to someone else's gift of gab.
Expert tip: Grab a women's magazine. There are tons of "real" women in there to set as your ideal.

4) Use people's opinions and actions as proof of your value. This is where your basis for judging your value should come from. Don't get asked out on dates? There's proof that you are hideous to behold and unattractive. This is strong data that you can use at any moment to be insecure. Use it. No one ever asks you to do anything? It's true. You're obnoxious, and people can't stand to be around you. Any time you can use other people's opinions and actions as a means to reflect on you and how you should perceive yourself, do it--but only if it is opinions and actions that remind you how little you matter.

5) Focus on yourself at all times. This one is vital to your insecurity. Insecurity thrives by being the focus of everything you do. It's crazy how fast you'll feel valuable as you try to help other people and consider other people's needs. Don't risk being exposed to this source of confidence. Keep your thoughts inward. If you're having trouble finding ways to avoid noticing others, start at tip #1.

May you find greater insecurity in your future,

Amanda

Considering Henna?

 I think I have wanted red hair since I was 5. I figured twenty years was a long enough time to consider it. After looking around, I used henna to go ginger, and I don't regret it one little bit. However, there are a few things to consider first.

Pro #1: When the sun hits your hair, you look like a radiant fox goddess

I get comments about my hair all the time. And it's not because I do anything with it that I didn't before. Henna makes my hair shiny, thick, and it glows vaguely in bright light. I'm not even kidding.

Pro #2: Henna Gives you True Ginger Hair

Because Henna stains the keratin outside of the hair shaft, it keeps all the variations in color that occur naturally on your head. So unlike a typical box dye, you keep all the light and dark interplay that makes your hair look multi-dimensional and natural. (Which also means, if you have dark hair you're never getting to copper with henna alone).

I also feel the color pay-off of Henna is a lot closer to natural ginger hair than I could find in salon-dyes which tend to be on the bluer burgundy-Rihanna spectrum. (At least in the first applications. Henna does build up on itself which I'll get to later).   I can't tell you how many times people have told me "I wish I was born with red hair"--even ladies with dyed red hair. And people are always assuming my friend's ginger daughter is mine. I love that I can pass off as natural redhead with henna.

Pro #3/ Con #1: Doesn't fade

I have no idea how to take pictures of myself

Having had salon red highlights, I know that on my head the shelf-life of box red is about two weeks.
Three weeks if I can go longer between washes before the red loses it's luster.

If you prepare your Henna with an acidic liquid--it is super bright for the first three days post application, and then "oxidizes" out to a nice, rich auburn that then does not fade come high-water or frequent washes. But... you will also never be rid of it.

Since I like the nice glossy, thick feeling henna gives my hair, I had been doing mostly full-head applications instead of just the roots, but after four full-head applications I knew I had overdone it and the color was getting a bit too wine-y for my tastes. So I did a bleach-shampoo (WARNING*) which knocked out the offending purple tones. But, really made no impact on the depth of color, just it's shade. My roots where California blonde, but the henna was essentially untouched by the bleach. (Unfortuantely I don't have pictures of this event, because I wasn't even thinking about writing about it. Sorry)

So I know that going back to my natural hair color is going to be an awkward root-stripe adventure. But I guess it gives me an excuse to cut my hair into that pixie-cut. Which is another thing I've wanted to do to my hair for the last decade, but lacked adequate courage.

Because who wouldn't want hair
 like WhippyCakes

Pro#4/ Con #2: I Get To Take Relaxing Soaks in the Bath

The process of putting Henna on your hair is pretty messy. You are after all spreading a pound of high-dye-content mud all through your hair. But sitting around with saran wrap on your head while you watch a movie isn't so bad. Washing it out though takes a little work, and is best done "mermaid" style. Which means I've taken 6 baths in five months, which is 6 more baths than I have taken in the previous 15 years.

I feel so awkward.

But I only actually sit inside the second tub-full of water. Because the first tub-full looks like flood water within twenty seconds,opaque with silt and dye. Then I drain that and fill a new tub. The water is still not colorless, but at least it's clear orange, rather than straight up mud. No, it doesn't stain my skin. And it does make my feet soft but I don't know that that's due to the henna...since seriously, I have never taken a regular bath, that I remember anyways.

No matter how long you rinse your hair that first day the water will never run completely clear and you'll probably stain your towel. Just accept that.

Con #3: Makes your Roots look Grey

By nature I have perfectly lovely light ashy brown hair. But  my natural color looks pretty lifeless next to the glowiness of the henna. I can still get away with 6 weeks of growth before I touch-up though.

Roots look bad regardless of what hair color you use.  However, paired with Con #1, I'm not looking forward to the growing out process. Which, honestly, I'll probably start when I finish my stash of henna powder in my freezer. Not because I don't love the red, but I don't want to feel trapped dyeing my hair.

First I did ombre, then I did henna hoping to get ombre red. But that didn't pan out.
 I don't know what's up with the weird camera angles. My apologies

Some tips if you decide to make the henna plunge:

*WARNING: Never put bleach on hair that has been dyed with anything that you aren't totally sure was 100% henna. Indigo turns green with bleach. And often "henna hair dyes" sold at hippie grocery stores and the like are blended with metallic salts that will *burn* your hair if you mix them with bleach.

• I dyed my hair with Body Art Quality (BAQ) Henna. I got mine at Mehandi.com  and used the "Rajasthani Monsoon" vintage of 100% ground henna. Mixed only with hot water and crushed vitamin C. 
• 200 g of henna gets me a more than adequate full-head coverage on my super straight, medium thick, lower-back length hair 
• Put henna in using the "turban method" it is definitely the easiest way to get even coverage. But skip the color brush and just use your gloved hands
• Put lotion on your hands (under the *gloves*), knees, elbows, and feet before you start since the skin there absorbs the dye faster than everywhere else. That way you don't have to worry about cleaning up the inevitable splatter until you're all finished putting the henna in your hair. 
• I put some vaseline all around my ears too, just because they're really difficult to clean off with the saran wrap helmet if you don't slick up the skin first.  
• Everyone says "yogurt" consistency for your finished henna, but having used everything between "greek" "yoplait" and "kefir"  in my hair with mixed results. I think it's much clearer to say like a  "pureed soup, with a little flour to thicken it" type consistency. If that meant nothing to you, just go with yogurt. 
• Lemon-juice makes my hair static-y and angry. And vinegar smells like an abomination of pickled grass clippings. I mix my henna with hot water and 3 crushed up vitamin C pills per 100g and I've had no problem with fading.  
• I let the dye release for 6-ish hours before I put the henna in. And I leave the henna in my hair for only 2-3 hours, because like I said I don't like the ruby-color, and frankly, the henna is way too heavy to keep it piled on my head for longer than that .

Bottom-line: It's just hair. Do it. Live the dream. 

How To Believe in Jesus Part 1

How to Believe in Jesus. Step one, don't hate Jesus. 

I get that there's this sort of feedback-loop logic that says people that hate in the name of Jesus justify hating Jesus. Okay, whatever. But as a plea for greater civility, perhaps we ought to consider that most people are obnoxious regardless of nationality, education, religious affiliation or lack thereof. 

Aslan
 because he's literally the fictional Jesus

I mean there are a lot of annoying people in this world, and just statistically, 2 out of 7 of them are Christian, one was born in China, and almost all of them have brown eyes. Get what I'm getting at. 

I understand that it's possible that  Jesus is a mental construct. And you can't prove that the entire concept of religion isn't anything more than a millenias old coping mechanism we pass down to our children from one generation to another for the simple reason that that's what our parents did.

But on a personal level if in the moment of death, it is somehow made eminently clear to me that God does not exist, I would have no regrets that I lived my entire life as a Christian. 

Really.

Because even if God is a coping mechanism, what's the harm? What's the harm in having an extra nudge to stop and help jump that ratchet-looking car in the Target parking lot? Or having an obligation to get out of your yoga pants and serve once a week, even if it's with a baby on your hip? 

Where's the downside in a built-in justification to hold a potluck with people far outside your socioeconomic or generational circles? Or to feeling like you still fulfill a meaningful purpose even if illness or disease means the only service you're capable of, is sharing some of your thoughts on Jesus?

If there's even one more, tiny mental hurdle to cross before you cuss someone out or flirt with a married man or give up hope--isn't that a good thing? 

Right, in the name of this coping mechanism, yada-yada  crusades, reconquista, etc. etc. But no, not really. Religion has been used as propaganda since the beginning of human history, but that doesn't make it a motive. I mean, it's a little generous to the Medieval monarchs to say that Jesus was more important to them than the Silk Road. Keeping the faith and a mistress are pretty much always mutually exclusive, and keeping the latter wasn't all that rare. You can come to your own conclusions about the real role of religion in these conflicts, but I don't think the evidence is very convincing. 

Yes, you can be a judgey, back-stabing Christian, but I'd argue that the same people would probably make judgey, back-stabing Athiests.  I mean, isn't that the like the major Athiest credo: religion does not have a monopoly on morality. Thus religion cannot possibly corner the market on immorality. 

You can be a self-centered jerk with or without Jesus. At least with Jesus, I feel a little more guilty about it. Not a good enough reason to join a church, but to me, it's plenty good enough to stay there. And a good  place to start in the journey of becoming religious.  

I believe that there was a man who lived a good life. Who lived with unimpeachable integrity, and was kind or just to the perfect degree in every circumstance. And I believe that he can help me live a life like that. 

I haven't always felt like he was up to the task, but wishing that were true has never done me anything but good.

Step one in believing in Jesus is "well, it would be great if it were true." 

 

Wouldn't it?

-Stephanie

How "A Short Stay in Hell" Should Have Ended

So I read a book for my bookclub that filled me with so many thoughts that I wanted to explore them a bit more. In the quite likely evetn that you've never heard of A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck, here's my spoiler-free summary and review:

After death, a man is sentenced to a limited stay in hell before he can go to heaven. Of a multitude of hells, he is sent to a library filled with books of every possible combination of characters on a keyboard, and tasked to find the autobiography of his life among the near infinite number of nonsensical volumes. 

A lot of the goodreads reviews complain that at 100 pages it's hardly worth it's price tag. If you've spent more than $2 to see an entertaining, but ultimately superficial superhero movie sometime in the last decade, than Short Stay in Hell is definitely worth the $3 to $12 it takes to get hold of a copy. But I think what the reviewers were really getting at is that while Short Stay if very good for what is, it's incredibly disappointing for what it could have been but wasn't.  At 100 pages, it was too long (ironically) to just prove it's main premise--the vast and terrifying quantity of eternity-- but too short to explore the multitude of other themes it brushes against but never  delves in. 

It was a five-star book if you're looking for a fast, theologically-inspired horror story to keep you up at night. But by the time I reached the closing paragraph I felt so cheated of a much deeper storyline that ultimately I have no idea whether I liked it or not. A great book avoids preaching, but I felt this book avoided making a point at all.

Did someone say library of the damned? *my heart hurts*
Spoilers below

I think I felt cheated mostly because the author trespasses the law of Checkov's Gun. He loads three or four guns on the mantle in the first act and they remain unfired after the closing curtain.  Maybe it bothers me so much because as a religion-junkie I actually knew something of Zoroastrianism before I picked up the book. But why bother mentioning that Zoroastrianism is the "one true religion" over and over if it was just  for a "haha, suckers an obscure Mesopotamian religion is the right one" gag? And when a very short novel makes a point to explain the specifics of Mormon doctrine over several paragraphs, I assume it has plot significance beyond the moral dilemma of a cup of coffee.

I got to the end thinking "crap, eternity is a long time" but ultimately left me unchanged about how I view myself or others on this little blip that is mortality.

So here's how Short Stay in Hell should've ended:

In the opening pages we learn that a book on Zoroastrianism is on every floor (another red-herring, apparently). I understand that even that book would be infinitessimally difficult  to find, but one that's also many million times more likely to be found than a book that can only be found on one of the near-infinite number of floors.

So eventually our protagonist learns that Zoroastrinism is a dualistic religion. Good God and the Bad God are perfectly balanced in a cosmic tug-of-war for all eternity and so Zoroastrian Hell does not exist. Of course they are actually are confined to the library , but their Hell is a neutral rather than a negative place. Which they've known from the beginning. Elliot even says it, "I was stationed in the South Pacific in WWII--that was much more of a hell than this." So as Dire Dan's cult of torture made Hell much more Hellish, they discover they can also make from their neutral hell, a heaven.

Our Mormon main character thinks again on his mortal beliefs he previously explained about deification and the innate divinity of all mankind. He realizes that the people in the library, not the books, are the source of their mutual sanctification. Instead of the monotony he thinks is the reason why all the inhabitants of his hell are white Americans from the same period of time-- he realizes that the people most like him are the people most easily understood. The people easiest to work and empathize with.

Working together they could slowly become master sculptors, painters, singers, mathematicians, etc. as they teach each other the skills they learned and the books they read. And with an eternity to practice, everyone becomes a master (can we get pop-culture Dracula reference). If they can actually work together, they could becoming more and more God-like in their combined knowledge and practice. But I don't necessarily need a happy ending.

The food kiosks that they used to exploit to make bone weaponry, could provide seeds to germinate, pigments for paint, spices for scent, materials to carve and hew. And every Mormon guy knows who you work with, you love. What could be better than an eternity among the ones you've grown to love? But they can never get there. What at first seemed a far simpler task than finding the impossible book, is shown to be much more time consuming project. Charity is harder to fathom than eternity.

There's still the matter of free will. So to retain the same ending tone as the original: Eons pass, but factions reset their progress over and over in their attempts to make a heaven of hell. They can never get every one to catch the vision at the same time.

The book ends with our main character repeating the library rules to himself like a prayer.

"Rule #1: Please be kind. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Failure to do this will bring unhappiness and misery to you and your fellow citizens.

Rule #3: Nothing lasts forever. One day this will all just be a distant memory." 

An epilogue shows a progress report by Xandern on the citizens of the Library of Babel:

The inhabitants of Training Room #487 show no progress towards getting along with each other. I cannot recommend them for promotion to unrestricted eternities. They haven't been able to behave themselves even among their peer group of white, book-reading Americans.  

I am encouraged by some of their recent developments, although  I estimate the time until they pen their own autobiography, indicating that they see themselves as they are seen is twenty raised to the nine thousandth days away. 

I guess that's my Short Stay in Hell fan-fiction.
-Stephanie

Five Ways to Fall in Love . . . with Food

Hey Steph,I love food. It is not unusual for me to sit in front of a delicious plate of food and smile broadly with the words “This is my life! I get to eat this” running through my head. There are few things that compare with the delight of eating a slice of homemade bread hot from the oven or juicy peaches or gooey chocolate-chip-coconut cookies.

Stephanie Kilgast

My friends aren't surprised to hear about my love of food, for I admit this infatuation quite frequently. But this wasn't always the case. I used to think I wasn't skinny enough to say out loud that I loved food; if I ever did say it, I’d imagine the people around me thinking, “Yeah, we can tell by looking at you.”

And truthfully, I’m not sure I always loved food. I fell into the common trap of labeling all food either “good” or “bad,” and these labels made it really hard to truly enjoy food. If I was eating a “good” food, say, an apple or carrots, I would think, “I wish I was allowed to eat ice cream.” If I was eating a “bad” food, say, cookies or French fries, I would think, “You messed up again. You’re disgusting.” It’s hard to love food when eating either feels restrictive or guilt-inducing. 

I started to break free of these labels after taking a nutrition class. I was expecting the professor to second all these beliefs I had long held about good and bad foods. Instead, she taught that food is a beautiful gift we have been given to nourish our bodies and to bring enjoyment into our lives. She said that there was no such thing as good food or bad food. There was just food.

Since that class, I've slowly learned to love food, and it has been one of the greatest everyday joys in my life. Below are five ways for you to fall in love with food too:

      1)      Let go of the labels. What has been crazy to me about removing the “good” and “bad” labels from food is how many more foods I enjoy now. When salad was labeled “good” in my mind, I almost had an aversion to it because I felt like I had to eat it. Now, with the label removed, I really enjoy eating salad and sometimes choose it because I want to. Likewise, I have learned that I really don’t like most raw vegetables. They just don’t taste good to me. But whereas before I would have felt bad for not eating them or forced myself to eat them and not enjoy the experience, I just don’t eat them. No guilt because they aren't labeled “good” foods. Instead, I just eat cooked vegetables because those are delicious to me. (Seriously, go buy some heirloom tomatoes, onions, and squash at the farmer’s market—you can get cheap produce right before the market closes—and bake them in the oven. Divine!)

       2)      Listen to your body. Babies innately know how much to eat, and they stop when they’re full. Unfortunately, most of us become insensitive to how our bodies feel about what and how much we are eating. Ever-growing portion sizes at restaurants have increased our perception of a full meal. This, added to parenting proverbs like “finish the food on your plate,” makes it hard for us to learn to stop when we are actually full. As I've learned to listen to my stomach, I’ve found that I enjoy food so much more because I’m not stuffed or bloated when I am done eating. Also, I tend to eat fewer sweets because my stomach feels upset if I eat too much

Jamie McCaffrey

      3)      Learn about how your body works. Our bodies are amazing! Along with a plethora of other insights I gained in that nutrition class, I learned how our miraculous bodies use food to help us walk, breath, think, and live. As I've learned more about my body, I have gained motivation to provide healthy foods for it to work well. I feel a desire to eat fruits and vegetables rather than feel restricted to only fruits and vegetables.

       4)      Learn about where food comes from. Historically, we as a people once used most of our time to grow, raise, and harvest food. Now we spend much less of our time and our money on getting food, and I believe that has made us less thoughtful about eating. As I have learned more and more about the hard work that goes into producing my hamburger or the corn and peaches that I so adore, I have become more thoughtful about eating. I have slowed down and enjoyed the ritual of eating. I have felt a greater sense of gratitude for the food that is before me, which has made me enjoy my food much more than I used to.

       5)     Love yourself and then you’ll love your food. Food does not make you who you are, and your choices about food don’t need to define you. The truth is that part of learning to love food for me has been less about loving food and more about loving myself. As I have journeyed in accepting my body and valuing myself and all the complex facets of my being (not just my physical appearance), I have placed less value on what I look like. This has made my eating habits matter a great deal less. It has relinquished food from being a source of weight gain and ugliness. Now food is just one of many activities I enjoy.

One last thought before sending you on your way to loving food like a boss and gaining the sweet liberty of expressing your love of food freely: I found that learning to love food was a slow process. It has taken a great deal of mental retraining to remove the deeply ingrained habit of labeling foods. It was a test of persistence in actually changing the way I think, but eventually the labels disappeared (most of the time) from my thought process, and it has been so worth it.

Cheers, 

Amanda

Calories Are NOT Bad

I saw this from NPR’s Facebook account this morning:

“ Would you think twice about that 20-ounce soda if you were informed that it would take 5 miles of walking — or 50 minutes of running — to burn it off?”

With a link to it’s story, Reality Check: To Burn Off a Soda, You’ll Have to Run 50 Minutes  

There are many reasons this is idiotic reporting. Mostly because this is promoting anorexic thinking.

Source

Reality check: the average 30 year old woman burns 115 calories every waking hour, doing absolutely nothing.

Your body needs fuel. Food is not just something you eat to stop hunger pains, and then every morsel that passes through your mouth must be logged against how long it will take to run/walk/vomit off. Eating should not be an antagonistic activity. Striving to pass the smallest number of calories through your gut is not a goal, it's a disease.

Labeling Coke with a sticker that essentially reads “Warning: this food contains calories”--- is a horrible idea. Soda is not a bad choice because it contains 250 calories. Soda is a bad choice because those calories are unaccompanied by fiber, protein, vitamins, or fat. 

A coke and an avocado have roughly the same number of calories. That does not make the avocado junk food, nor should you pysch yourself up for a cardio workout every time you eat one. And while a rice cake may only have 35 calories, it is not a health food. Rice cakes provide nothing but simple sugars.

You can only eat so much in a day and your body requires certain amino acids, lipids, and other compounds that can only be obtained through eating. Soda contains none of those things. Thus you should usually spend your limited intake of food on those things that provide your body with necessary nutrients.  

I’d much prefer a sticker on Coke that reads: “Warning: these calories are purely for entertainment. NOT FOR MINDLESS CONSUMPTION”

*Steps down from soap box*
Stephanie

How a Japanese Internment Camp Reminded Me of Literary Theory

Hey Steph,

So I'm trying to check off the last few places in Utah that I've not been to. Not terribly far away from where I live is the Topaz Internment Camp, where over 8,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II.

It was a sobering experience. There wasn't much left of the camp.

This is literally the only man-made part of the camp I saw.

The rest of the camp looked like this. 

As I walked around the dry landscape, I was reminded of a concept I learned back in my undergrad days as an English literature student. The concept relates to categories we have in perceiving the world: the Self and the Other. The Self references perceiving life through one's own experiences and perceptions. The Other references a group or concept outside of one's self; something alien or divergent from your experiences and perceptions. A running theme in literature is the Self learning to view the Other complexly and accepting the Other as part of the Self--that is, as similar to themselves.

For whatever reason, it seems that we humans have a long history with dealing with the Other poorly. The early Americans enslaved Black people because they were the Other. The Nazis imprisoned and killed the Jews for being the Other. Americans "relocated" Japanese Americans during World War II for being the Other.

And we still do it today. Far too many Americans fear all Muslims because Islamic extremists have terrorized Americans. There's far too much acidity in the words spoken by Democrats about Republicans. There's too much vilifying by Republicans of Democrats.

And we do this with individuals too. Someone hurts us, and our first response may be to focus in on this offense and remove the complexity of that person. She is thoughtless. He is a jerk. I would never say the things she said. I would never treat someone the way he treated me. Gone is a person that contains both good and bad attributes, leaving behind the Offender, the Other, someone without redeemable qualities.

Once we choose this lens of simplicity, it's hard to view people outside of that category that we have chosen for them. But I hope that we can choose to take a second look at those that hurt us, at those that scare us, at the Other, and reassess why people do what they do.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Cor. 13:12)

It's a challenge, but I hope we can put aside "childish things" and recognize that "for now we see through a glass, darkly." We cannot fully understand others. We don't see the inner workings of their hearts. We don't know their sorrows and pains. We don't know the reasoning behind their actions. I wonder if becoming "a man," as Paul wrote, has a bit to do with seeing the Self in the Other, even when the Other has attacked us or hurt us.  

Cheers,

Amanda Kae