Tight Places

Some of our tight places are huge & long term:  disability, illness, hunger, war, racism, sexism, & displacement.

Some are medium & medium term:  unemployment, depression, debt.

Some are small & short term:  the wrong paint color, my new tights got a run in them, a broken washing machine.

Sometimes we get all disordered in our thinking about tight places:  we might mistake medium for large, small for large, and so on.  And then we spend a large amount of energy on a small problem, or not enough on a large problem.  Like, we might think that our kitchen faucet is ugly and that it's a big problem.  It's not.  Or that we don't need to worry about discrimination against another person or group because it's not us.  But it is us, and we do.

So here's to keeping perspective on all that.

Girls in Tight Places is a space to discuss all kinds of tight places, and the good and bad things these places bring to our lives.

How do we deal with them?

Who do we tell our stories to?

What do we learn from them?

What can we learn from one another & our tight places?

And what does legwear have to do with all this?

How do we stretch out of them, learn to love them, figure out how to change them?

Here's a list of posts that specifically address our tight places:

Professor Claire L.

SOLE

A Series of Juxtapositions

Vagina Day


5 comments:

  1. This is so fabulous. I logged in because I admire Ayun, and now I admire you and your blog too. I look forward to reading everything! I'm a writer/researcher/slacker, living in D.C., mom of 2 pre-teens, separated, dating again somehow. My tight places are time and money-related. And clothing-related. And self-discipline-related.

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    1. truth, i girls in tight places share your tight places. the self-discipline place is kicking my trash right now. thanks for reading!

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  2. Is this officially blogging? I hope so. My body is a very tight place because it really dislikes being upright for more than, max, an hour. Horizontal works very well for me, just not for my bosses and, well, my church and my home economics. Oddly, I've found that wearing tight stretchy clothes actually helps me feel as if my body is less constricted. Corsets help hold me upright, but I only use one when the situation is fairly desperate, meaning I simply must stay vertical and, at all costs, avoid the gravitation pull of bed, couches, or floors. Under ordinary conditions, stretch pants of just the right stretchiness and tightness--which create a kind of stimulating feeling, like wearing a constant mild massage--and a tight T or tank are great little helpers around the house as I become much more excited about things like laundry and vacuuming and dishes when I'm wearing them. This outfit is significantly more effective if I don an apron with a snug tie around the waist--the kind with ties long enough to go all the way around (360 degrees) and so may be tied either in back or, with just a little extra cinching, in front. A nice apron provides exactly the right amount of modesty to my personal home economics team. I recommend team Spandex for any girl who has trouble keeping her feet on the ground. Sometimes the apron requires heels and, while the right pair of shoes can be invigorating, it you're like me you may fall off of them, which would, you know, sort of defeat the purpose. I hope this advice proves useful to other girls whose bodies tend toward the horizontal. I'd be lost, home economically speaking, without lycra and other energizing, supportive fabrics.

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    1. this is fantastic, dian! technically, you are not actually blogging, but doing something called "commenting on a blog." you will be actually blogging when you agree to guest post for GITP, which i will surely get you to do. thanks for your great, hilarious comment!

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    2. I just discovered your reply from April 19--about 20 days ago. Well, it's a start. So Blogs don't send you notices, the way facebook does, when someone replies to your comments. That's good to know. I did'nt even know where or if my comment had ended up on Girls in a Tight Place, but thought I hadn't looked at the site since posting (I forgot, sorry) and so decided to poke around a bit. Eventually, I ran into my one original post and your reply. Aside from several edits I would do, this piece conveys pretty directly much of my everyday sentiments about sung stretchy clothing. Not too bad for a first try. Have fun in NY.

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