{ contributors, lately }

i'm living a chapter of such overwhelming (exhilarating, but overwhelming nonetheless) change. it seems like almost everything i read (and i'm trying to read a lot, both to inform me further and to get out of my own head from time to time) provokes, inspires, evokes, ignites.

my thoughts on so many things are still in formative stages. i'm not afraid of wandering inarticulately for pages to the one paragraph i really needed to write, but for now most of my figurings-out are being punched out in a private journal.

here are some pieces of what i've been reading, reacting to, and thinking about lately. when i was younger i would've clipped and kept the physical articles, and as a natural-born archivist/cataloger of life, that's a hard tendency to break. i'm making myself recycle the articles, and i'm keeping track of some of it here. i still hand-copy passages from books and magazines into my journal on a regular basis, though. i don't think i'll ever completely stop doing that.

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on being a blogger and sharing personally in the public sphere, by audrey rogers (here)

I am struggling to find ways to stay relevant and compelling to you kind women who read Frassy but I’ll start simply, by vowing to be a friend you can relate to, rather than a girl you envy. That isn’t me. I am just like you. I have financial struggles, I cry more often than I’d like to admit and so often, I feel truly so lost and so completely clueless. But I do feel positive about being more personal and taking this blog in all kinds of new honest directions, one day at a time.


on a solitary togetherness, by audrey rogers (here)

I’m moody, prone to a vague confusing sort of melancholy, aloof in ways I don’t even realize and I often enjoy being a loner. But above all, I’m not searching for a man like a puzzle piece to complete me. There is no frantic hunt in my heart to snag a husband. I’m happy the way I am – I’m not looking to be soaked up  into someone else’s life. I’m looking for a man who can meet me in the middle, a relationship where our lives unite but don’t become one.

on the new norm and "the new shame" - excerpts from nip. tuck. or else. by joel stein for time

You're going to get a cosmetic procedure for the same reason you wear makeup: because every other woman is.

It's not fair that --- in 2015, with a woman leading the race for the Democratic nomination for President --- in addition to dieting, coloring your hair, applying makeup and working out, you now have to let some doctor push syringes in your cheeks just to look presentable. It's not fair that you have to put your surgery on your credit card just so the other moms on the playground don't overestimate your age. It's not fair that you may risk your life going under general anesthesia just to keep up.

Abigail Brooks, the director of women's studies at Providence College...worries that [the] pressure is not only exhausting but also keeps women forever 21 emotionally [as well as physically].

Not having work done is now the new shame.

on the newest graduation gift - excerpts from the truth about freezing your eggs, by charlotte alter for time

The appeal is al much about feminism as it is about fertility: for a generation of women who feel they can control everything but their biology, freezing their eggs seems like a way to shatter the last gender barrier.

"There's almost a 'check the box' attitude about it: I got my teeth cleaned, I filed my taxes, I froze my eggs," says Sarah Elizabeth Richards, author of Motherhood, Rescheduled. "Protecting your fertility is just one more aspect of being a successful woman. Almost like taking out an IRA."

For many women, freezing their eggs is as much about fear as it is about hope. Fear that they won't find the right partner, fear that prioritizing pregnancy could have consequences at work, fear that their fertility will suddenly plummet...For them, freezing their eggs is as much a way to find peace of mind int he short term as it is about a future family.

[Vicki] Rokhlin put her eggs on ice while still in her 20s. "I'm doing this now so that I'm not 34 wanting to have kids and putting so much pressure on my body," she says. "I really believe this will start being a gift which parents give to their daughters when they graduate college, so that they don't feel this cataclysmic pressure to follow a timeline."

in answer to the question, "are we alone in the universe?"

Captain Janeway spent seven long years in the Delta Quadrant, 75,000 light-years from home, battling alien species of every conceivable kind, so if you were to pose the question to her, she would throw back her then-handsome head and, regarding the questioner with a touch of pity and a scintilla of scorn, would open her mouth and laugh with the abandon of the fully confident. Fictional characters are often given to such displays of hubris.

I, on the other hand, confront this question with the same wide-eyed, full-hearted innocence I bring to bear on all that is impenetrably mysterious. I read, I think, I observe, I listen, I weep, and in the end, I am resigned to the limits of my own imagination. I simply look heavenward and whisper, "I hope not."

{ Kate Mulgrew, actor known for Star Trek: Voyager }

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after being wrecked on every level watching interstellar about a month ago, reading kate mulgrew's words bring tears to my eyes. often i feel a very distinct need to be strong, full of knowledge and airtight opinions, unbreakable, unbending even, impenetrable, immovable, hard. but perhaps to truly discover new things and moreso, to become something new, i must also be able to...

be wide-eyed.
be wholeheartedly innocent.
listen.
weep.
hope.