reid > Recent Status Updates

A real honest to goodness paper back to take the edge off

Uh oh…. She’s in the self-help aisle again, hoping Knowledge will be The Cure— someone call Lacan! (Further evidence of Obsessive Compulsive Behavior?? Must Learn Must Heal Must Understand and Explain)

This is the weirdest fucking book and not in a good way, yet I’m continuing for the sake of finishing

My self help era of unabashed external support seeking

Hearing the phrase “pharmaceutical psycho-therapeutic industrial complex” and “sophisticated drug ring” (MAHA much?) I accidentally hit the EMERGENCY STOP button on the treadmill during my best multi mile pace in months… is this spiritual awakening? I am uber sensitive to medication shamers & mental illness simplifiers. So… yeah, this hurts. Would have loved it 2-3 yrs ago when I was militantly anorexic!

Men are rarely true voyeurs; they want their presence known. They want you to know you are being watched, to watch yourself, report on yourself, witness yourself as they would. They want you to want to know what men want.

Ok Irish girlies!

Learning lots about homo sapien, homo erectus etc.. and the French. Yuck!

Unmothered and unmoored…. Mmmm

Viva la revolucion

Idk if I need to finish this…. I’m feeling so amigo

I feel compelled to say again: Dworkin is not coming up with any of these statements out out of nowhere! She is not creating stories about brutalization of women at the hands of men, nor exaggerating the degree of abuse and degradation suffered by those women. She’s simply describing the plot and situation, social implications, oppressive intentions, etc.. of existing narratives. Like… HE wrote that. HE did

She really isn’t *that* radical in her appraisal of our sexist culture, it’s her call to action for true (radical) feminism and the actions necessary for its implementation people skitter away from. (Probably because women don’t want to lose the power of leveraging sexuality, and men don’t want women to stop performing sexuality for their benefit. Or something like that…..)

This is so stupid. I hate the narrator’s voice and his gimmicky, grandiose, unnatural idiosyncrasies. No one talks like this outside of movies. These characters are characters, not people. Clearly written to be a screenplay or a movie— not made for the written medium at least not one I care to continue reading!

Rolling my eyes

I see why all the boyfriends of our book club’s members loved this tongue-in-cheek, frankly masculine and rationally propelled book. Yawn. Can’t wait to read Sylvia Plath or something emotional after this

Wow this is unexpectedly horny

What we’ve come to know as nurturing is enabling. The community and shared language of suffering meant to embolden us to travel through trauma on the wave of healing waters now drowns us in self-pity, manipulation, avoidance. It is meant to be a boat to get you across the river.

Oh this will be life altering.

As a spiritual seeker and an athlete I have struggled to negotiate oneness between constant mental vs physical pressure. Can the body and the mind coexist when both are in pain? Where does pain begin in my hips and end in my childhood? I’ve been asking myself, “where do I feel this in my body?” Myers’ teaching will help me navigate the spiritual pain networks in my muscles

How does consciousness affect the body?

“I hadn’t been a wreck for a long time, but still there was something deeply wrong with how I took care of myself….sometimes I was doing too much, sometimes too little. Sometimes what felt normal and correct to me looked like a disorder to others. I was genuinely unclear about what was good and what was bad, what was care and what was abuse, what was discipline and what was punishment.”

She’s repeating her points throughout chapters, but the points are salient and well written. She clearly had a lot to share from her story. Could use a fine tooth comb edit

IN MY AUDIOBOOK ERA DO NOT JUDGE THE INTELLECTUAL APPEAL OR LACK THEREOF IN MY RECENT LISTENING 🚨 I imagine the narrator’s internal dialogue is intended to be indicative of neurodivergence- namely, autism &/or some personality disorder. The character is so time and place white woman living in a liberal city outside of the suburbs in 2018. I’m sure my they/them coworkers would love this

Started on a whim via a quick“available now” search on Libby. A “blind” listen so to speak. Low score or not, I am finding this an enjoyable hypothesis about regret, motherhood, shifting priorities, and the weight of resolved trauma.

Phoning this in

I fear this is meant for people with no social skills and not deeply traumatized but charismatic despite-it-all (impressively avoidant, or ignorant to their repressed emotions???) individuals like myself.

I thought the chapter on the historical aversion to women’s exercise (as it supposed masculine character, sexuality [though not based in reality— women were not addicted to masturbating bc of bikes, lol], and physique) and the associated origins of standards of “femininity” would be the most triggering. Yet this chapter on tuberculosis is inducing constant eye-rolls and “oh my goddd” groans.