A ripple of fat
Andrea Sadowski
I haven’t had abs since grade eight. I wanted to enter high school a totally new person — I wanted to be likeable, popular, and skinny. I filled my stomach with nothing but a few soda crackers and water and laboured through five hours of cardio and ab workouts every day over the course of the summer. It paid off — I had these beautiful, defined abdominal muscles by the time school started. I was thin, hungry, and anxious to make friends and to be liked. Needless to say, I did make friends in grade eight, some of whom are still my closest friends, but they didn’t seem to care about my ripped abs. So I started eating more, exercising less, and fat started to appear around my midsection; my abs were replaced with this small bulge of fat right at the base of my tummy. Ever since then, it didn’t matter what diet I went on, how much exercise I did, how much weight I lost off of other parts of my body — I could never shed this pooch on my belly that formed an unsightly roll every time I sat down. This small ripple of fat dictated what I wore, how I posed for photos, where I placed my arms when I sat or when I stood. I have pinched it, fought it, cried over it, yelled at it, but it still won’t go away.
There is nothing left to do but accept it, love it, and embrace it as a vital part of my body that protects my organs. This body ran a half-marathon, climbs up mountains every weekend, digests the insanely delicious food I make, is a pillow for the cats I live with, and is a home for my soul. The padding on my stomach, hips, thighs, butt, breasts, and arms are something to be cherished and make me who I am.
When the headlines run out
Carissa Wiens
When I opened the New York Times homepage on Jan. 21, I was very confused: where were the Trump headlines? Every article mentioned Biden, and even as I scrolled down, I only saw the name Trump once. It was like I was transferred into an alternate universe where the past four years never happened. I barely saw the word COVID-19 either. This resulted in me not even clicking any articles to read. It was a weird feeling.
Now that Trump is out of office I’m starting to feel concerned for news sources, bloggers, and any sort of content creator. With all the good that Biden has the potential to do, it probably won’t be more intriguing than the insane actions of the 45th president of the United States. The headlines Trump generated were so crazy that news sources are certainly going to struggle to get that same amount of interest going forward.
It seems like the only thing that will get people to click on an article anymore is the mention of Michelle Obama’s latest outfit choice.
Online shopping will be the end of me
Kathleen Clingwall
Someone, take my credit card because I am addicted to online shopping. I have approximately 10 packages on the way and believe me, I have tried to stop, but there’s just something about ordering an assortment of items and then checking when it’ll be here that is exhilarating. Of course, the best part is the arrival; it’s like buying a present for yourself except the element of surprise isn’t exactly there. I mean, don’t get me wrong — there have been times when I have ordered something from a website and when I received it, it was definitely not what I was expecting. Nonetheless, this apparently won’t stop me from enabling my addiction to ordering things from Amazon or clothes off of less-than-reliable websites that I find through ads on Instagram. I will add that there is some comfort to having this problem, considering I am not the only one doing it. My friend and I are online shopping addicts together. Usually when one of us orders from a website, the other one has to add something into their cart. The strange thing about all of this is I don’t consider myself a materialistic person — I could live my life with only a few shirts and a pair of pants — but this still doesn’t stop me from clicking that one dismal button: “continue to payment.”
Seeking arrangements (for my fabric stash)
Mikaela Collins
I am a tired stereotype of a crafter. My bedroom is the largest I’ve ever had in my life, and yet it has the least free space due to the sheer volume of craft materials I’ve crammed into it. Fabric for sewing, yarn for knitting and rug hooking, tackle containers of floss for embroidery, stacks of old magazines for collage, paint, clay, canvases, pegboards, shelves, cabinets, and a dress form named Miranda all cling to the perimeter of the room — and you don’t even want to see my closet.
So, I need a girlfriend.
I need a serious girlfriend, and I need one now, because I can’t afford my apartment alone. If I got a girlfriend now, I could ask her to move in with me when my roommate moves out in two years. We could share my bedroom, all of my craft supplies could be sequestered in the other bedroom, and we would have the uncluttered, peaceful grown-up bedroom of our (my) dreams. It’s a foolproof plan. Would she essentially be a sugar daddy for my balls of yarn, paying their rent? Yes. Is that a good reason to seek out a relationship? No. Is it still in the back of my mind whenever I match with someone new on Tinder? I’d rather not say.
(Elyssa English /The Cascade)
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.
