Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

Hard Luck by Jeff Kinney

Tomboy by Liz Prince

On puberty (or Growing and Changing): 
"It was seeming less and less likely that I would become a boy, but I'd never considered that I was becoming a woman. I guess my grasp of biology wasn't so great in 6th grade."

On cheerleaders and double standards: 
"A boy can be celebrated because of his personality and talents, regardless of how he looks. In fact, talent can make a guy attractive who may not be by traditional standards. (long hair, scraggly chin pubes, kinda scrawny)" 

"But a girl is usually only popular if she looks good. (well groomed hair, blemishless face, perfect teeth, willingness to wear revealing clothing)" 

"I wanted to be celebrated for being funny and a good artist. Of course I wanted to look good too, but on my own terms. (do nothing hair, zits-a-plenty, baggy boys clothes)" 

On sexually- oriented bullying: 
"Don't make me prove how much of a man I am....Just kidding, Don't get your hopes up, stupid." 

"The stereotype of the butch lesbian has plagued me my whole life, but I didn't dress like a boy to attract girls: I dress like a boy because it feels natural to me. I wasn't against being gay. I was against being bullied. And I was tired of having these false labels applied to me."

Perhaps my favorite simple scene takes place between Liz and her mentor, Harley, who publishes a zine and offers to meet regularly for writing sessions. This exchange really resonates, because it's so simple in its complexity. There is so much truth and heartbreak in these subjects.

"I was thinking about how (I'm) different from other girls. And how we used to talk about hating girls, and that I maybe wasn't supposed to be one."
"What makes you thin you aren't meant to be a girl?"
"Well, do I look like a girl? I don't wear make-up and dresses!" 
"Sure, but those things don't define a girl."
"It's more than the clothes though, it's like girls are expected to act a way that I don't like." 
"It's an interesting idea, but I would challenge you to decide: Do you hate girls? Or do you hate the expectations put on girls by society?"
"Is there a difference?" 


see also: swimming in tshirts, ghostbusters, chasing boys to kiss them, girl scouts, little league, third wheel

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

"As intrigued as I was by this new dynamic of disrespect, at my core I didn't want to be spoken to like that. It made me feel silenced, lonely, and far away from myself.    ...The end never comes when you think it will. It's always ten steps past the worst moment, then a weird turn to the left.

...This is what it could have been like. This is what it had never been like. And so I was angry. ...After the best night we had ever had, the first night he'd let me feel like myself, I wrote him an email sayin ghe had hurt me, taken adventage of my affection, and made me feel disposable. I told him that I wouldn't be available any longer. And then I made myself sick to my stomach waiting for an apology that never came."

"My mother understood, implicitly, the power of it. See these hips, these teeth, these eyebrows, these stockings that bunch and sag at the ankles? They're worth capturing, holding on to forever. I'll never be this young again. Or this lonely. Or this hairy. Come one, come all, to my private show."

"We talk about enlightened beings, what it would mean to transcend the human plane. 'I want to be enlightened, but it also sounds boring,' I tell him. "So much of what I love -- gossip and furniture and food and the Internet -- are really here, on earth." Then I say something that would probably make the Buddha roll over in his grave: 'I think I could be enlightened, but I'm not in the mood yet.'"

On running away:

"Soon you will find yourself in more and more situations you don't want to run from. At work you'll realize that you've spent the entire day in your body, really in it, not imagining what you look like to the people who surround you but just being who you are You are a tool being put to its proper use. THat Changes a lot of things. ...Sometimes that old feeling slips back in. OF being invaded and misunderstood. Of being outside your body but still in the room... You used to own the night and put it to good use. Is togetherness killing your productivity? When's the last time you stayed up until 4:00A.M. testing the boundaries of your consciousness and Googling serial killers? ...But you remember how hard it was, that moment between wakefulness and sleep. how the moment of settling down was almost physically painful, your mind pulling away from your body like a balloon being sucked into the atmosphere. ...People need sleep. You've learned a new rule and it's simple: don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from. But when you run, run back to yourself..."