"Ballet class with pin-thin shaking hands and bathrooms that smelt like a bad dream. A teacher who said, “Don’t eat unless you faint, darlings.” You get used to cigarettes in the hands of young girls. You get used to the backstage addictions of “only nine hundred more crunches to go.” You get used to seeing this stuff until one day someone asks you why you know all the calories in a grapenut.

The television saying, “Lose weight, feel great.”. The television saying, “Girls mean nothing.”; The television saying, “If you’re not pretty, you’re not worth discussing.”. The television saying, “If you’re pretty, your personality is awful.”. The television saying, “Spend your money.”

My father telling me: there’s nothing wrong with this system.”