When I was younger, I was fan of saying to my more melanin challenged friends when they offered me sunscreen, “I don’t need that! I don’t burn, I’m black!”

Oh how very wrong I was. It’s not that sunburn is all that different when you’re black, it’s just way more embarrassing. And way less attractive.

The first time I got burned by my hated enemy the sun was in Hawaii. Proof that you should screen up even on cloudy overcast days. The day albeit warm, was gray — but those wicked rays got me anyway. I didn’t know what it was at first. My shoulders itched and burned. I thought I was having some allergic reaction to something in the Hawaiian air. My mom took one look and said, “Ha! You got sunburned!”

The second time it happened I was in Africa and that was even more unbearable for different reasons. After that I decided that the sun and I just aren’t friends. Read More »

It’s as vivid today as it was when it happened five years ago: Chris and I bodysurfing on an abandoned beach just outside of Acapulco and Stephanie looking at us with wonder from the shore. He and I would get slammed, and slammed again, then come up smiling from sand-filled ear to water-logged ear. Just before going in, we looked out into the vast horizon. The sky was clear blue. There were no clouds in sight. The ocean held us in its wake. Suddenly, we both gasped at the same time: a flying stingray briefly jumped out of the water just fifteen feet away.

“Did you see that?” he asked me.

“That was so cool,” I said.

Christopher Cady was my best friend’s boyfriend. He and Stephanie — like myself — had a real case of wanderlust. With no one else could I share my travel stories and feel completely understood. Only they understood why I would want to attend college in Maine, a continent and ocean away from my home in Hawaii: for the pure challenge and unpredictability.

Steph and I lived vicariously through each other, traversing the globe and telling each other tale after wondrous tale. Their travels brought them from Maine to Mexico to Taos to Central America to Boston, but culminated abruptly in Chamonix one fateful afternoon in January 2004. Chris had prepared an engagement ring before their trip. He didn’t get a chance to give it to her because, despite the storm that was brewing that late afternoon, he took an off-piste route and went missing. Read More »

Every girl knows that unless you’re some kind of anomaly and super okay with every inch of your body, the idea of being scrutinized in a bathing suit is a thought horrifying enough to keep most of us in sweats forever.

Why then, are so many people interested in breaking down celebrities who aren’t frighteningly thin?

Jennifer Love Hewitt is the most recent victim of badly angled paparazzi photos, and I have to say, I feel every inch of her pain. Sure, the girl isn’t skinny, but she’s not fat.

So there are a few instances of cellulite. So she has a waist thicker than a pencil. So she’s not wearing a ton of make-up at the beach. How many average women does this describe?

I’m happy that JLW isn’t thin. Even though I don’t watch her show (I mean, if we’re being honest here…it’s totally boring), I think she’s a good role model for girls all over the country who have boobs and an ass.

She’s on TV and she’s not a size 0. There’s hope for us all. Read More »