It's happened. I knew it would at some point.
Last night Honey Bunny and I were working out with Yoga Trainer and I was having a hard time doing 21 Frog Squats as compared to our usual 15. The majority of the time I can make it to 12 before my thighs start to scream (no problem! - only three more to go... usually) but last night, my thighs were burning like crazy by number seven. A psych out, knowing that I had to go six past the usual 15? Normal flux between workout sessions? Or must I admit that in the two weeks Yoga Trainer was on vacation, I only exercised on my own a whopping three times and was feeling the impact of that?
I stopped at 16 and started rubbing my thighs and said, "Omigod, my thighs are on fire!" Yoga Trainer didn't say his usual, "Just take a breath and resume. You'll be okay!" while continuing to do the squats himself. Instead he stopped, stood up, put his hands on his hips and said, "I'd have a hard time doing these too if I strapped 100 pounds to my body."
Hardest words to hear, EVER.
Well, that's not entirely true. I actually think being talked to by my parents and sister over the years about needing to lose weight ranks as being just slightly worse, if only because it felt so loaded (they are my family, aren't they supposed to love me the way I am?), dangerous (oh god, what if they don't love me this way?) and, sometimes, just downright judgmental (Hi Dad! Thanks for saying that being obese makes people look "unkempt"!). Honey Bunny, too, has expressed over our six years together that he would like me to be more healthy so that we can live a long married life together. That doesn't feel so painful anymore, though... now that it is a dialogue between us rather than a suggestion or lecture.
It was extremely hard to endure Yoga Trainer's words, and the ensuing hour in which he asked us to sit down and for me to really talk about what it is I want out of training and, well, life. (Hey, he's a yoga guy.) Lots of tears were shed on my part. I contemplated getting up and walking out a few times because it was so uncomfortable. I wasn't sure in the moment whether what YT was saying was harsh or compassionate.
When people talk to me about needing to lose weight or be more healthy, my first reaction is to feel victimized. In reality, what I know for sure is that I feel thoroughly embarrassed and disoriented, and sometimes offended. Whether those things qualify me for the "victim" category, I'm not so sure.
My victimized stance usually includes a lot of tears and reasoning for why the person talking to me has no right to do so. So much so that the person (usually) backs down and apologizes for bringing it up. If it's someone close to me, s/he says they love me for who I am and meant no harm.
Something interesting happened with Yoga Trainer, though. By the end of our conversation, I no longer felt embarrassed, disoriented, offended OR victimized. YT is a tough nut with a big ego. And, apparently, so am I. He won last night, but his victory didn't seem like my personal defeat. While I can't say at this point that his victory is going to be my personal victory (cue YT to stop what he's doing, stare intensely at me and shoot back, "Why not?"), I can at least say that he talked to me about losing weight in a way that felt very different than the way others have. He's not part of my family and he isn't my friend really (at least not in the traditional way). It didn't feel so loaded and dangerous, and while he pushed me to my limit to get information and a commitment to have further intense conversations with him, it still didn't feel judgmental.
It was so weird to be raw like that. I talked to him about being in a dead-end job, feeling like I was going nowhere in life, not being able to set goals and stick to them, and how that all relates to losing weight (or not). It was the weirdest therapy I've ever experienced, that's for sure. With Therapist, we talk about things slowly and methodically in a safe setting where I get to (feel like I?) make discoveries on my own. Talking with YT was, literally, wild. I think both behoove me. (Lordy, is it too bourgeois to say that and to be able to take advantage of both??)
10 October 2009
23 September 2009
Tampon Talk
First there was Church Chat, now there's Tampon Talk! Hope you don't think I'm too gross, but it just so happens that tampons are the common thread (string) here.
Let's start with this season's Real World. Young people have always been fascinating to me - even when I was a young person - but moreso now that I supervise young people at work and am thinking of bearing a child who will, presumably, become a young person at some point. "The Young People" (as Honey Bunny calls them) in this context, are roughly aged 16 - 25, for those who are wondering.
The Real World Cancun's Young People have been extra fun to observe in their unnaturally luxurious habitat. Back in my day as a youngster, our issues amounted to nothing more than excess drinking and sleeping with the wrong person. These days, the excess drinking is just the jumping off point. Now there are mental health issues (bulemia, cutting, unhealthy fixations with guns, zombies and the military) (don't ask!), adventures in bisexuality, threesomes, and talk about sleeping with the wrong person! How about ending up in bed with your mortal enemy? Who teased and taunted you in front of your roommates, friends and coworkers for weeks on end about your very un-funny mental health issues?
Said mortal enemy got an unexpected smack down on the token reunion show after the season wrapped. When douche nozzle cast member Joey asked sensitive drama queen Emilee (daughter of therapists, natch) if she was on her period after she ranted about his bad-boy behavior, she snottily replied, "I'm not on my period, Joey, but if I were, I'd take my tampon out right now and slap you across the face with it."
Awesome! I wish I'd had such imagination when I was a Young Person. It actually caused me to jump up off the couch whooping with laughter, rewind and watch it again, run into the bathroom where Honey Bunny was in the bath to tell him about it, make him get out of the tub to come watch it where all he did was roll his eyes and pad with wet feet and towel back to the bath. And yet, I'm still laughing about it and still wanting to share the magic.
Next up we have a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, who had... an odor. A very unfortunate odor, and discharge too, coming from down yonder for two straight weeks. I kept encouraging Friend to go to the gynecologist or, at the very least, talk to an advice nurse, but she was unwilling because she was embarassed.
On Monday she called to tell me the source of the odor had been identified. "I went to wipe this morning and there was a string," she said. Gulp. Her period had ended two and a half weeks prior. I'll spare you the (gory) details. At that point, I really encouraged her to visit the gyno to make sure everything was ok, but again she resisted. A friend can only encourage an ObGyn visit so much, eh?
Then she text messaged me yesterday, while I was in a meeting: "I smell so much better!" If I could have, I would have jumped up out of my conference room chair and whooped with laughter, and shared her text and story with my favorite female coworkers.
As it happens, something similar happened to me when I was a Really Drunk Young Person. Somehow in the middle of the night, in a dark porta-potty while camping, I thought I did a replacement manuever but instead ended up with a, um, "double decker situation". Next morning as my head was pounding and stomach churning, I shuffled back up to the porta-potties, sat down, and had to ask myself, "Why are there two strings?" Nice.
Lastly, last week I had a scare/hope in which I thought I would get a respite from using tampons for the next nine months. Sadly, I don't get that respite. Thank you to those of you who listened to me rant and rave and be hopeful and be scared, so on and so forth. We'll see what happens in the future.
Let's start with this season's Real World. Young people have always been fascinating to me - even when I was a young person - but moreso now that I supervise young people at work and am thinking of bearing a child who will, presumably, become a young person at some point. "The Young People" (as Honey Bunny calls them) in this context, are roughly aged 16 - 25, for those who are wondering.
The Real World Cancun's Young People have been extra fun to observe in their unnaturally luxurious habitat. Back in my day as a youngster, our issues amounted to nothing more than excess drinking and sleeping with the wrong person. These days, the excess drinking is just the jumping off point. Now there are mental health issues (bulemia, cutting, unhealthy fixations with guns, zombies and the military) (don't ask!), adventures in bisexuality, threesomes, and talk about sleeping with the wrong person! How about ending up in bed with your mortal enemy? Who teased and taunted you in front of your roommates, friends and coworkers for weeks on end about your very un-funny mental health issues?
Said mortal enemy got an unexpected smack down on the token reunion show after the season wrapped. When douche nozzle cast member Joey asked sensitive drama queen Emilee (daughter of therapists, natch) if she was on her period after she ranted about his bad-boy behavior, she snottily replied, "I'm not on my period, Joey, but if I were, I'd take my tampon out right now and slap you across the face with it."
Awesome! I wish I'd had such imagination when I was a Young Person. It actually caused me to jump up off the couch whooping with laughter, rewind and watch it again, run into the bathroom where Honey Bunny was in the bath to tell him about it, make him get out of the tub to come watch it where all he did was roll his eyes and pad with wet feet and towel back to the bath. And yet, I'm still laughing about it and still wanting to share the magic.
Next up we have a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, who had... an odor. A very unfortunate odor, and discharge too, coming from down yonder for two straight weeks. I kept encouraging Friend to go to the gynecologist or, at the very least, talk to an advice nurse, but she was unwilling because she was embarassed.
On Monday she called to tell me the source of the odor had been identified. "I went to wipe this morning and there was a string," she said. Gulp. Her period had ended two and a half weeks prior. I'll spare you the (gory) details. At that point, I really encouraged her to visit the gyno to make sure everything was ok, but again she resisted. A friend can only encourage an ObGyn visit so much, eh?
Then she text messaged me yesterday, while I was in a meeting: "I smell so much better!" If I could have, I would have jumped up out of my conference room chair and whooped with laughter, and shared her text and story with my favorite female coworkers.
As it happens, something similar happened to me when I was a Really Drunk Young Person. Somehow in the middle of the night, in a dark porta-potty while camping, I thought I did a replacement manuever but instead ended up with a, um, "double decker situation". Next morning as my head was pounding and stomach churning, I shuffled back up to the porta-potties, sat down, and had to ask myself, "Why are there two strings?" Nice.
Lastly, last week I had a scare/hope in which I thought I would get a respite from using tampons for the next nine months. Sadly, I don't get that respite. Thank you to those of you who listened to me rant and rave and be hopeful and be scared, so on and so forth. We'll see what happens in the future.
20 August 2009
What my upper lip and garbage bin at work have taught me
My upper lip was left battered and bruised last weekend in a waxing incident. Yes, sure, I volunteered to do it and even paid the big dollars. Unfortunately, now it looks like I have poison oak on my upper lip and it's not very attractive. Ironic, right? I got my lip waxed so that I could feel better about myself and if anything, it's left me feeling self-conscious and stupid. Yet, even if I didn't have a killer rash I would likely still be feeling self-conscious and stupid... and I'll tell you why.
That little layer of fuzz covered up the fact that I'm starting to get little fine lines radiating down in a diagonal pattern to my top lip. My mom warned me about this. She told me when I was 20 and started using lipstick regularly that I needed to use a lip brush, otherwise I'd get lines like she had. Mmmhmm. "Right Mom, the fact that you've been smoking a pack a day since you were 15 has NOTHING AT ALL to do with those lines," I'd always think.
But I digress. My real point, the more horrifying thing about this is that I've caught my reflection in the mirror since last Saturday and it looks like I'm sucking lemons a lot of the time. No, not horrifying because of the way I "look". Horrifying because of the way I must be feeling and/or projecting.
When I worked at the Renaissance Faire back in the day, this guy I had a crush on started calling me the "Poop in the Mouth Peasant" behind my back. Finally my best friend at the time told me, so I'd stop making that look. "What look?" I asked. She replied, "Dude, sometimes you look a little... pinched."
Imagine my horror when I caught myself in my rear-view mirror this Monday morning after having flipped someone off. I won't go into specifics but I get cut off, on average, two times in the span of just this one particular block on my drive to work every. single. morning. And on this particular Monday, I'd had it. I honked briefly as I passed the latest cutting-off offender, to catch her attention, and then I gave her the big ol' finger as I sped away. Then I looked in the mirror. Why, I have no idea... but I looked. And there I saw a stranger. A really angry woman with a poop-in-the-mouth, pinched, sucking lemons look on her face. "I'm not that person!" I thought.
Over the course of that day, as I tried to glimpse myself in mirrors at various other times, I realized that yes... yes, I can be that person. I just don't want to be. So, I decided to use my upper lip as a barometer this week, and without a mirror. Say I'm feeling crabby. I ask myself, how does that lip feel? Ah, it feels pinched. If I remember to think about my lip just randomly and it feels tight or drawn, I ask myself how I feel. Huh, strangely stressed and I don't even know why.
When Honey Bunny and I go to personal training, Yoga Trainer constantly tells us we need to "practice with an inner smile." At first I just didn't get it. Why would you do exercise with a smile? HOW do you do exercise with a smile? His theory is an old one: fake it until you make it. I think I get it now.
*****
Also under the category of "I'm not that person" is a story about my personal garbage bin at work. You see, Joe the Janitor comes in my cube every day at 5pm to dump my garbage. I don't know Joe personally, but he's a nice enough guy. One day about a month ago, after he asked me how my day was, I started wondering what Joe's job was like. He must see at least a few of us in our cubes every day when he empties our trash. Does he check out what's in our garbage bins? Does he make note of patterns in what we throw away? Because I would, were I Joe the Janitor.
On the odd day when my ear canal itches, and I bust out the emergency cotton swabs and scrape out some ear wax, I can barely put them in my bin because I'm afraid of what Joe will think. I mean, gross. Sure he's got latex gloves on and probably sees some gross shit in the bathroom trash cans, but at least there it's expected!
But again, I digress. At some point I started monitoring what I threw away in terms of food, food containers, wrappers, etc. For starters, at my job we put out tons of mini chocolate candies for our many customers, and so we have giant Costco-size bags of them in bulk. I'm a chocolate whore, and I admit it. I sometimes steal up to 10 pieces of halloween candy per day from our storage cabinet, I admit that too. The wrappers all go in my personal garbage bin. You see where this is going?
It doesn't stop at my choco wrappers*. I also have a bad habit of eating at my desk at lunch while perusing blogs and Facebook. All wrappers go in my personal garbage bin. I thought I was a healthy eater. I thought I was making healthy choices for lunch. At some point, I said to myself, "I don't eat crap like this! This was just an exception for today." Well, after you say that to yourself for an entire month, the truth is staring you in the face. It's sitting in an open-top garbage bin three feet away from where you sit all day in your cube, to be exact.
What must Joe think of me?, I kept thinking after my realization. Such is the peril of having a nice janitor, right? Then it dawned on me that the real person I was letting down was myself. It's strange how something so random can motivate you. I started taking my lunch to work more. Soon Joe would see the pits of summer peaches, a smear of homemade hummus on a paper towel where it had squished out of my whole wheat sandwich, and maybe, just maybe, a choco wrapper or two (not twelve). It also started to inform how I purchase lunch as well.
How random is it to think, "what do I want to see in my garbage can when I leave work today?" rather than, "what do I want to eat today?" But hey, it works.
* = Believe me, the painful irony of my admitting that I eat a bunch of halloween candy every work day after my last ranting post is not lost on me.
That little layer of fuzz covered up the fact that I'm starting to get little fine lines radiating down in a diagonal pattern to my top lip. My mom warned me about this. She told me when I was 20 and started using lipstick regularly that I needed to use a lip brush, otherwise I'd get lines like she had. Mmmhmm. "Right Mom, the fact that you've been smoking a pack a day since you were 15 has NOTHING AT ALL to do with those lines," I'd always think.
But I digress. My real point, the more horrifying thing about this is that I've caught my reflection in the mirror since last Saturday and it looks like I'm sucking lemons a lot of the time. No, not horrifying because of the way I "look". Horrifying because of the way I must be feeling and/or projecting.
When I worked at the Renaissance Faire back in the day, this guy I had a crush on started calling me the "Poop in the Mouth Peasant" behind my back. Finally my best friend at the time told me, so I'd stop making that look. "What look?" I asked. She replied, "Dude, sometimes you look a little... pinched."
Imagine my horror when I caught myself in my rear-view mirror this Monday morning after having flipped someone off. I won't go into specifics but I get cut off, on average, two times in the span of just this one particular block on my drive to work every. single. morning. And on this particular Monday, I'd had it. I honked briefly as I passed the latest cutting-off offender, to catch her attention, and then I gave her the big ol' finger as I sped away. Then I looked in the mirror. Why, I have no idea... but I looked. And there I saw a stranger. A really angry woman with a poop-in-the-mouth, pinched, sucking lemons look on her face. "I'm not that person!" I thought.
Over the course of that day, as I tried to glimpse myself in mirrors at various other times, I realized that yes... yes, I can be that person. I just don't want to be. So, I decided to use my upper lip as a barometer this week, and without a mirror. Say I'm feeling crabby. I ask myself, how does that lip feel? Ah, it feels pinched. If I remember to think about my lip just randomly and it feels tight or drawn, I ask myself how I feel. Huh, strangely stressed and I don't even know why.
When Honey Bunny and I go to personal training, Yoga Trainer constantly tells us we need to "practice with an inner smile." At first I just didn't get it. Why would you do exercise with a smile? HOW do you do exercise with a smile? His theory is an old one: fake it until you make it. I think I get it now.
*****
Also under the category of "I'm not that person" is a story about my personal garbage bin at work. You see, Joe the Janitor comes in my cube every day at 5pm to dump my garbage. I don't know Joe personally, but he's a nice enough guy. One day about a month ago, after he asked me how my day was, I started wondering what Joe's job was like. He must see at least a few of us in our cubes every day when he empties our trash. Does he check out what's in our garbage bins? Does he make note of patterns in what we throw away? Because I would, were I Joe the Janitor.
On the odd day when my ear canal itches, and I bust out the emergency cotton swabs and scrape out some ear wax, I can barely put them in my bin because I'm afraid of what Joe will think. I mean, gross. Sure he's got latex gloves on and probably sees some gross shit in the bathroom trash cans, but at least there it's expected!
But again, I digress. At some point I started monitoring what I threw away in terms of food, food containers, wrappers, etc. For starters, at my job we put out tons of mini chocolate candies for our many customers, and so we have giant Costco-size bags of them in bulk. I'm a chocolate whore, and I admit it. I sometimes steal up to 10 pieces of halloween candy per day from our storage cabinet, I admit that too. The wrappers all go in my personal garbage bin. You see where this is going?
It doesn't stop at my choco wrappers*. I also have a bad habit of eating at my desk at lunch while perusing blogs and Facebook. All wrappers go in my personal garbage bin. I thought I was a healthy eater. I thought I was making healthy choices for lunch. At some point, I said to myself, "I don't eat crap like this! This was just an exception for today." Well, after you say that to yourself for an entire month, the truth is staring you in the face. It's sitting in an open-top garbage bin three feet away from where you sit all day in your cube, to be exact.
What must Joe think of me?, I kept thinking after my realization. Such is the peril of having a nice janitor, right? Then it dawned on me that the real person I was letting down was myself. It's strange how something so random can motivate you. I started taking my lunch to work more. Soon Joe would see the pits of summer peaches, a smear of homemade hummus on a paper towel where it had squished out of my whole wheat sandwich, and maybe, just maybe, a choco wrapper or two (not twelve). It also started to inform how I purchase lunch as well.
How random is it to think, "what do I want to see in my garbage can when I leave work today?" rather than, "what do I want to eat today?" But hey, it works.
* = Believe me, the painful irony of my admitting that I eat a bunch of halloween candy every work day after my last ranting post is not lost on me.
11 August 2009
Faith = gone
My faith has been shaken, and quite possibly damaged beyond repair. Perhaps I have a thinner skin then when I started this blog, but I can no longer stomach reading material like this article entitled "Does The Fat Acceptance Movement Glamorize An Unhealthy Lifestyle?" from The Frisky.
Correction: the article I can deal with... it's the comments section that makes me want to cry in my beer, er, large vat of M&M's that I must be imbibing day after day (because I'm fat and exercise, but don't lose much or any weight as a result). You can find my personal comment in response under the username latouff. And yes, I was pissed off when I wrote it.
I do firmly believe that fat people are one of the scapegoats of this society, and you need look no further than the title of above-mentioned blog posting for an example. I'm not quite understanding why asking for acceptance about the way one looks (identifies) constitutes "glamorizing" a lifestyle. (The writer does mention two fat women bloggers by name in the article, and perhaps they are, indeed, glamorizing their own fat lifestyles. Their. own.) That's like saying gay men who believe gay marriage should be legalized are "glamorizing" a gay lifestyle and all the unhealthy aspects - medical or otherwise - that may be associated with it.
In the end, I just don't get it. I don't get why my body size and weight is up for so much speculation in a world, in a nation, absolutely abounding in social problems. I can fully accept that my body size and associated medical maladies is one of those social problems. What I can't accept is the way people talk about this particular social problem like it isn't personal to them. You've been battling the fat on your own body for years, and view said fat as unattractive, unslightly and a giant pain in your ass? I get it! Seriously, I do. You got a mother, father, sibling, friend who is fat and has health problems as a result, and you're concerned about them? I get it! I do. I have lots of people concerned about me who are vocal about it, and I hate them for it, but I also love them for it. What I can't stand is when concern for someone who is personally in your life turns into a battle cry to "fight obesity".
Do you know how that sounds to someone who is obese, by the way? That there is a campaign by both my state and federal governments to "fight obesity"? To fight obesity is to fight me, assholes.
I'm a person, not a statistic.
I'm a person, not a population.
I'm a person, not a set of medical conditions.
If there were a way to cure obesity, then all the companies who produce diet products and diet magazines and shit like that would go out of business. There is no cure. There is no formula for making a person not fat or not obese, as much as doctors, therapists, fucked up TV shows and otherwise, would like you to believe. Reducing caloric intake and exercising are only the beginning, not the end, of the solution.
Obese people are just that: people. Imperfect. Struggling. If you want to help, then you need to figure something else out besides "fighting" our theoretical health problems and bad-mouthing what we look like in your bitter, shrill, opinionated rants on some random blog.
When I started this blog, it WAS to champion fat people and how, with a little work, they can lead normal, healthy lives in the face of a lot of people who feel otherwise. I still believe that... I just don't know that I can continue to be slapped in the face by people who think they are doing their rightful part in the "fight against obesity" by shutting down any fat person who dares to actually live a less-ashamed, less-abashed life.
Correction: the article I can deal with... it's the comments section that makes me want to cry in my beer, er, large vat of M&M's that I must be imbibing day after day (because I'm fat and exercise, but don't lose much or any weight as a result). You can find my personal comment in response under the username latouff. And yes, I was pissed off when I wrote it.
I do firmly believe that fat people are one of the scapegoats of this society, and you need look no further than the title of above-mentioned blog posting for an example. I'm not quite understanding why asking for acceptance about the way one looks (identifies) constitutes "glamorizing" a lifestyle. (The writer does mention two fat women bloggers by name in the article, and perhaps they are, indeed, glamorizing their own fat lifestyles. Their. own.) That's like saying gay men who believe gay marriage should be legalized are "glamorizing" a gay lifestyle and all the unhealthy aspects - medical or otherwise - that may be associated with it.
In the end, I just don't get it. I don't get why my body size and weight is up for so much speculation in a world, in a nation, absolutely abounding in social problems. I can fully accept that my body size and associated medical maladies is one of those social problems. What I can't accept is the way people talk about this particular social problem like it isn't personal to them. You've been battling the fat on your own body for years, and view said fat as unattractive, unslightly and a giant pain in your ass? I get it! Seriously, I do. You got a mother, father, sibling, friend who is fat and has health problems as a result, and you're concerned about them? I get it! I do. I have lots of people concerned about me who are vocal about it, and I hate them for it, but I also love them for it. What I can't stand is when concern for someone who is personally in your life turns into a battle cry to "fight obesity".
Do you know how that sounds to someone who is obese, by the way? That there is a campaign by both my state and federal governments to "fight obesity"? To fight obesity is to fight me, assholes.
I'm a person, not a statistic.
I'm a person, not a population.
I'm a person, not a set of medical conditions.
If there were a way to cure obesity, then all the companies who produce diet products and diet magazines and shit like that would go out of business. There is no cure. There is no formula for making a person not fat or not obese, as much as doctors, therapists, fucked up TV shows and otherwise, would like you to believe. Reducing caloric intake and exercising are only the beginning, not the end, of the solution.
Obese people are just that: people. Imperfect. Struggling. If you want to help, then you need to figure something else out besides "fighting" our theoretical health problems and bad-mouthing what we look like in your bitter, shrill, opinionated rants on some random blog.
When I started this blog, it WAS to champion fat people and how, with a little work, they can lead normal, healthy lives in the face of a lot of people who feel otherwise. I still believe that... I just don't know that I can continue to be slapped in the face by people who think they are doing their rightful part in the "fight against obesity" by shutting down any fat person who dares to actually live a less-ashamed, less-abashed life.
31 July 2009
Social Not-working?
Lately I've been thinking a lot about Facebook and what it means to my life. I joined in mid-May, and like most people who are new users of the site/function/world, I was quickly swept up in it. It was new and fun and crazy. Two and a half months later it doesn't feel so fresh anymore. There might be some issues.
In order to be strength-based, let's start with the good things.
Something that greatly amuses me is how much conversation happens about Facebook while not ON Facebook. Practically every day, I come home to Honey Bunny and tell him what so-and-so said on FB today that made me laugh, or I tell him about the latest childhood or high school friend that's surfaced and become my "friend". Almost every work day, I IM with my friend Steve about the latest FB goings-on with our mutual (or not) "friends". [It all feels so surreal: the self-conscious dialogue about the self-conscious dialogue.] I've also noticed how Facebook is starting to be mentioned in TV shows and movies. It's a phenomenon that's not going away anytime soon, which is part of the reason why I joined.
Warning: brutal honesty ahead. I also think it's cool to get back in contact with people who I've known throughout the years, generally people who I have no interest in being actual friends with. It's like running into someone on the street who you haven't seen in a long time (on purpose). It's a quick, "Nice to see you! What's going on in your life?", and you get the 411 on each other, and then you're outta there.
Conversely, I really appreciate the fact that I can keep tabs on all my very good friends who are far-flung. It's a quick, easy way to see/read what's going on for them without having to schedule a phone call or write long emails back and forth. Not that I don't enjoy phone calls or long emails, because I do! It's just a little easier to check FB is all.
I'm also on Twitter, which is like Facebook for really, really lazy people. Facebook is often criticized as being a venue for people to make snarky, quippy updates about themselves whilst they await their "friends" to lavish praise and approval upon them via Comments for said snarky, quippy updates. If you're one of those people who feel this about FB, do not go on Twitter, whatever you do!
Anyhow, I follow my friend Ashford on Twitter who was alone in a new, as-yet-unpacked house this week while his wife was away on business. One night he wrote, "I'm alone and lonely, making dinner for just myself." Had I read this that night, I would have called him up and invited him over for dinner. It's good to know not just what's going on in friend's lives, but what's going on in their heads as well.
Now for the issues...
I've always been one of those people who has a hard time "being in the moment" but even I'm surprised at those times when I'm more concerned with updating my Facebook status to reflect what I'm doing rather than just continuing to do whatever it is I'm doing. Disturbing!
Once upon a time, I was into MOO'ing. I was much younger and admittedly, had no life. I MOO'ed to escape a life I knew I should be building in reality, and instead opted for virtually. I was on the forefront of online technology, but I could not have felt more disconnected from the real world. I feel it happening again, and I'm not sure what to do about it because now I do have a life, and it's a good one. Instate rules, parameters, limitations on my usage? Probably.
I did mention in my list of positives that having high school, etc, friends become "friends" was nice, but there's a downside to it as well. After I ran out of actual FB-using friends and close family to be my "friends" and I started acquiring others, posting updates about myself started to feel weird. I don't feel free to say the things I would normally say in front of my real friends. I feel I have to moderate myself, which irritates me deeply. I moderate myself at work and in public all day long. I want FB to be safe. One friend just suggested to me last night that I don't moderate myself, despite this worry. "Just be yourself and if they don't like it, they can hide your updates or un-friend you. Done." Alright.
My biggest worry, though, is how it's split my life. Honey Bunny is not on Facebook, and has no plans to be. FB can be my private little life away from him, if I so choose. I choose not to, which is why I talk to him about the daily goings-on, but I don't know that it completely helps meld my two worlds... my big real world and my small (but somehow significant) Facebook world. Hmm.
You know what? In the process of writing this post, I've realized it's not so much that Facebook, Twitter or Flickr (yep, I'm on that one too) has changed me... it's more that my iPhone has changed the way I relate to the online world. If I didn't have a phone that felt like a pocket-sized super computer, I don't know that I'd even be talking about this. Boy, if someone told me back in 1994 when I was reading Ender's Game that I'd own, and use like mad, my own scaled down version of a "desk", I would have told them they were nuts.
Weird.
In order to be strength-based, let's start with the good things.
Something that greatly amuses me is how much conversation happens about Facebook while not ON Facebook. Practically every day, I come home to Honey Bunny and tell him what so-and-so said on FB today that made me laugh, or I tell him about the latest childhood or high school friend that's surfaced and become my "friend". Almost every work day, I IM with my friend Steve about the latest FB goings-on with our mutual (or not) "friends". [It all feels so surreal: the self-conscious dialogue about the self-conscious dialogue.] I've also noticed how Facebook is starting to be mentioned in TV shows and movies. It's a phenomenon that's not going away anytime soon, which is part of the reason why I joined.
Warning: brutal honesty ahead. I also think it's cool to get back in contact with people who I've known throughout the years, generally people who I have no interest in being actual friends with. It's like running into someone on the street who you haven't seen in a long time (on purpose). It's a quick, "Nice to see you! What's going on in your life?", and you get the 411 on each other, and then you're outta there.
Conversely, I really appreciate the fact that I can keep tabs on all my very good friends who are far-flung. It's a quick, easy way to see/read what's going on for them without having to schedule a phone call or write long emails back and forth. Not that I don't enjoy phone calls or long emails, because I do! It's just a little easier to check FB is all.
I'm also on Twitter, which is like Facebook for really, really lazy people. Facebook is often criticized as being a venue for people to make snarky, quippy updates about themselves whilst they await their "friends" to lavish praise and approval upon them via Comments for said snarky, quippy updates. If you're one of those people who feel this about FB, do not go on Twitter, whatever you do!
Anyhow, I follow my friend Ashford on Twitter who was alone in a new, as-yet-unpacked house this week while his wife was away on business. One night he wrote, "I'm alone and lonely, making dinner for just myself." Had I read this that night, I would have called him up and invited him over for dinner. It's good to know not just what's going on in friend's lives, but what's going on in their heads as well.
Now for the issues...
I've always been one of those people who has a hard time "being in the moment" but even I'm surprised at those times when I'm more concerned with updating my Facebook status to reflect what I'm doing rather than just continuing to do whatever it is I'm doing. Disturbing!
Once upon a time, I was into MOO'ing. I was much younger and admittedly, had no life. I MOO'ed to escape a life I knew I should be building in reality, and instead opted for virtually. I was on the forefront of online technology, but I could not have felt more disconnected from the real world. I feel it happening again, and I'm not sure what to do about it because now I do have a life, and it's a good one. Instate rules, parameters, limitations on my usage? Probably.
I did mention in my list of positives that having high school, etc, friends become "friends" was nice, but there's a downside to it as well. After I ran out of actual FB-using friends and close family to be my "friends" and I started acquiring others, posting updates about myself started to feel weird. I don't feel free to say the things I would normally say in front of my real friends. I feel I have to moderate myself, which irritates me deeply. I moderate myself at work and in public all day long. I want FB to be safe. One friend just suggested to me last night that I don't moderate myself, despite this worry. "Just be yourself and if they don't like it, they can hide your updates or un-friend you. Done." Alright.
My biggest worry, though, is how it's split my life. Honey Bunny is not on Facebook, and has no plans to be. FB can be my private little life away from him, if I so choose. I choose not to, which is why I talk to him about the daily goings-on, but I don't know that it completely helps meld my two worlds... my big real world and my small (but somehow significant) Facebook world. Hmm.
You know what? In the process of writing this post, I've realized it's not so much that Facebook, Twitter or Flickr (yep, I'm on that one too) has changed me... it's more that my iPhone has changed the way I relate to the online world. If I didn't have a phone that felt like a pocket-sized super computer, I don't know that I'd even be talking about this. Boy, if someone told me back in 1994 when I was reading Ender's Game that I'd own, and use like mad, my own scaled down version of a "desk", I would have told them they were nuts.
Weird.
06 July 2009
Food politics
I started reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver this weekend and it's pretty interesting! It's not exactly the soapy, sleepytime fare I normally favor, but a coworker gave me a copy after I told her that Honey Bunny and I try to make at least 60% of our food purchases organic and/or locally grown.
Kingsolver wrote this book with her husband and daughter(s) after they uprooted their lives in Tucson, Arizona, to live in southern Appalachia. They vowed that, for one year, they would make "every attempt to feed themselves animals and vegetables whose provenance they really knew." In addition to reducing their carbon footprint by as much as possible, they wanted to really know where their food came from (who grew it, bartered it, raised it, killed it) or more importantly, to grow and raise as much of it themselves on their own farm.
Color me surprised by her mention of food politics as it relates to fat folks. The ensuing passage follows her explanation of how "the government rewrote the rules on commodity subsidies so these funds did not safeguard farmers, but instead guaranteed a supply of cheap corn and soybeans." These two crops were/are parlayed into not just feeding people, but feeding animals that are being raised for slaughter, "to make high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and thousands of other starch- and oil-based chemicals." The net result is that farmers were/are overproducing those crops just to keep their financial heads above water -- but where does the overage of these crops go? Well, the food industry apparently had some ideas on what to do with it...
Worth mentioning (at least to me): Barbara Kingsolver is not fat, nor is her husband or children.
Coincidentally, I read this article by Marion Nestle in the Sunday, June 21st, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle Food section. I have often, myself, wondered, "Aren't organics elitist?" Nestle's response was completely eye-opening and furthers that of Kingsolver's assertion above.
*Kingsolver, Barbara (2007), "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," pg. 15, Harper Perennial.
Kingsolver wrote this book with her husband and daughter(s) after they uprooted their lives in Tucson, Arizona, to live in southern Appalachia. They vowed that, for one year, they would make "every attempt to feed themselves animals and vegetables whose provenance they really knew." In addition to reducing their carbon footprint by as much as possible, they wanted to really know where their food came from (who grew it, bartered it, raised it, killed it) or more importantly, to grow and raise as much of it themselves on their own farm.
Color me surprised by her mention of food politics as it relates to fat folks. The ensuing passage follows her explanation of how "the government rewrote the rules on commodity subsidies so these funds did not safeguard farmers, but instead guaranteed a supply of cheap corn and soybeans." These two crops were/are parlayed into not just feeding people, but feeding animals that are being raised for slaughter, "to make high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and thousands of other starch- and oil-based chemicals." The net result is that farmers were/are overproducing those crops just to keep their financial heads above water -- but where does the overage of these crops go? Well, the food industry apparently had some ideas on what to do with it...
No cashier held a gun to our heads and made us supersize it, true enough. But humans have a built-in weakness for fats and sugar. We evolved in lean environments where it was a big plus for survival to gorge on calorie-dense foods whenever we found them. Whether or not they understand the biology, food marketers know the weakness and have exploited it without mercy. Obesity is generally viewed as a failure of personal resolve, with no acknowledgement of this genuine conspiracy in this historical scheme. People actually did sit in strategy meetings discussing ways to get all those surplus calories into people who neither needed nor wished to consume them. Children have been targeted especially; food companies spend over $10 billion a year selling food brands to kids, and it isn't broccoli they're pushing. Overweight children are a demographic in many ways similar to minors addicted to cigarettes, with one notable exception: their parents are usually the suppliers. We all subsidize the cheap calories with our tax dollars, the strategists make fortunes, and the overweight consumers get blamed for the violation. The perfect crime.*
Worth mentioning (at least to me): Barbara Kingsolver is not fat, nor is her husband or children.
Coincidentally, I read this article by Marion Nestle in the Sunday, June 21st, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle Food section. I have often, myself, wondered, "Aren't organics elitist?" Nestle's response was completely eye-opening and furthers that of Kingsolver's assertion above.
*Kingsolver, Barbara (2007), "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," pg. 15, Harper Perennial.
30 June 2009
Awkwardness
Over the weekend, Honey Bunny and I went to a big, big family dinner at his uncle's house. The reason for this particular fete? His cousin from Australia - I'll call him Harry - was in the US for a medical conference last week and decided to pass through San Francisco to see family on his way back.
Harry is a Bariatric surgeon. Yeah. Awkward. I'm far from being the only overweight relative in the bunch, but I don't think anyone else could pass for "obese".
There are lots of doctors and surgeons in HB's family, and the sidebars at family dinners are often about medical topics. Katie will ask why her cholestorol medication makes her face flush, Norman will show how he twisted his knee last night at his baseball game, and Honey Bunny will ask for advice on how to lower his uric acid level. You get the picture.
And, this is not the first time Harry has been in the US for conferences and such. One time he was in the Bay Area for two weeks doing a mini-internship under a supposedly famous Bariatric surgeon. I endured several family and two-on-one dinners with Harry during that time. And, I do mean "endure" as I always felt painfully self-conscious about what I was eating and how much, and what was being discussed at the dinner table and in what depth.
So what made this time different than any other? Firstly, I decided not to bother myself with the usual self-conscious thought routine. All previous occasions when I've spent time with Harry, it was met with hand-wringing for days prior, and a pep talk about how, if the subject of his work came up, I would hammer home my opinions about weight, obesity, and surgery as a means to accomplish weight loss. In other words I spent the days leading up to, and the actual visit, in defensive mode. I have to add that the subject of his work never came up, and so Harry doesn't know jack about my stance on living a fat life.
In fact... Harry doesn't know jack about me in general! I'm not going to out HB's family background, but I will say they come from "the old world". Unfortunately, I have to report that, in this family at least, women are not exactly included in conversations about anything other than cooking and god (and medical advice, as appropriate and necessary). Harry is no exception, and in fact I would say he's one of the worst. He'll talk the ears off any male family member, but where women are concerned there is a polite handshake and "How are you these days?" and that's about it. Point #2: Zaftig Chick needs to lay off the paranoia/narcissism and realize that the distance isn't necessarily about her!
I felt ready and steady to meet Harry this time around, but it was still awkward in the moment. I asked him what brought him to the states this time, and he very, very awkwardly told me he attended an obesity conference in Dallas, where he learned more about a specific procedure that he likes to perform. Ick. Thankfully the conversation veered quickly to Texas and how hot it is there, and he and HB were off and running. I politely excused myself to get a glass of water. Sometimes awkward conversations about awkward topics with awkward people happen in life, and sometimes you have to endure them. But, sometimes you don't. Harry is family and so I will always find a way to be genuinely polite to him, but there's no reason I should stand there and endure anything more than the routine niceties.
This is something I'm learning in general in life right now. Sometimes you have to take it, and sometimes you don't. And if you don't, then why waste your time with it? I don't mean that in a bitchy way. A waste of time can be as simple as playing one too many games of Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, or as complicated as putting effort into a fruitless relationship.
Also, I don't think that the distasteful actions of a person constitutes a reason to hate them. Harry has chosen a profession which is meaningful to him in a way that I don't get, and maybe someday I'll ask him for clarification on that. I've spent a lot of time in life lumping folks into two categories: good or bad. Thankfully I can see a lot of shades of grey now. Afterall, Harry is a terrific backgammon player (beats me and everyone else in the room, every single time) who seems to have a very genuine affinity for Honey Bunny. He has strengths, just like everyone else. He has deficits, just like everyone else. And I'm allowed to have an opinion about him, but I don't know that it need end in stern judgement.
Harry is a Bariatric surgeon. Yeah. Awkward. I'm far from being the only overweight relative in the bunch, but I don't think anyone else could pass for "obese".
There are lots of doctors and surgeons in HB's family, and the sidebars at family dinners are often about medical topics. Katie will ask why her cholestorol medication makes her face flush, Norman will show how he twisted his knee last night at his baseball game, and Honey Bunny will ask for advice on how to lower his uric acid level. You get the picture.
And, this is not the first time Harry has been in the US for conferences and such. One time he was in the Bay Area for two weeks doing a mini-internship under a supposedly famous Bariatric surgeon. I endured several family and two-on-one dinners with Harry during that time. And, I do mean "endure" as I always felt painfully self-conscious about what I was eating and how much, and what was being discussed at the dinner table and in what depth.
So what made this time different than any other? Firstly, I decided not to bother myself with the usual self-conscious thought routine. All previous occasions when I've spent time with Harry, it was met with hand-wringing for days prior, and a pep talk about how, if the subject of his work came up, I would hammer home my opinions about weight, obesity, and surgery as a means to accomplish weight loss. In other words I spent the days leading up to, and the actual visit, in defensive mode. I have to add that the subject of his work never came up, and so Harry doesn't know jack about my stance on living a fat life.
In fact... Harry doesn't know jack about me in general! I'm not going to out HB's family background, but I will say they come from "the old world". Unfortunately, I have to report that, in this family at least, women are not exactly included in conversations about anything other than cooking and god (and medical advice, as appropriate and necessary). Harry is no exception, and in fact I would say he's one of the worst. He'll talk the ears off any male family member, but where women are concerned there is a polite handshake and "How are you these days?" and that's about it. Point #2: Zaftig Chick needs to lay off the paranoia/narcissism and realize that the distance isn't necessarily about her!
I felt ready and steady to meet Harry this time around, but it was still awkward in the moment. I asked him what brought him to the states this time, and he very, very awkwardly told me he attended an obesity conference in Dallas, where he learned more about a specific procedure that he likes to perform. Ick. Thankfully the conversation veered quickly to Texas and how hot it is there, and he and HB were off and running. I politely excused myself to get a glass of water. Sometimes awkward conversations about awkward topics with awkward people happen in life, and sometimes you have to endure them. But, sometimes you don't. Harry is family and so I will always find a way to be genuinely polite to him, but there's no reason I should stand there and endure anything more than the routine niceties.
This is something I'm learning in general in life right now. Sometimes you have to take it, and sometimes you don't. And if you don't, then why waste your time with it? I don't mean that in a bitchy way. A waste of time can be as simple as playing one too many games of Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, or as complicated as putting effort into a fruitless relationship.
Also, I don't think that the distasteful actions of a person constitutes a reason to hate them. Harry has chosen a profession which is meaningful to him in a way that I don't get, and maybe someday I'll ask him for clarification on that. I've spent a lot of time in life lumping folks into two categories: good or bad. Thankfully I can see a lot of shades of grey now. Afterall, Harry is a terrific backgammon player (beats me and everyone else in the room, every single time) who seems to have a very genuine affinity for Honey Bunny. He has strengths, just like everyone else. He has deficits, just like everyone else. And I'm allowed to have an opinion about him, but I don't know that it need end in stern judgement.
05 June 2009
The mental tug-o-war
Last night I got my hair done by my lovely hairdresser Nancy. The last time I saw her, in March, she died my hair a rich reddish brown overall and then dyed over my old blond highlights with hot pink. I was in the mood to do something wild. It didn't seem that wild, though, since my highlights had grown out to the point where my roots were a good 2" or more. In other words, the hot pink had a more peek-a-boo effect.
Last night I was hell-bent on having highlights that went right up to my scalp, as I think it makes my hair and head have more dimension, and therefore look bigger. This has less to do with wanting Texas Hair (which I do love sometimes), and has much more to do with balancing body size. See - my mom, when I was about 15 years old, told me my head looked too small for my body when I wore my hair close to my head. Moms say the darnedest things sometimes!
(Thank goodness for my friend Hyla, who once quelled a crying jag I had about above-referenced Mom comment and what I perceived was very flat hair at the time. She said, "If anything I have always thought your head is freakishly BIG for your body!" My response? "Really?? Thank god!")
At any rate, Nancy bleached out pieces of hair for the highlights while doing my overall burgundy/brown/red color, and then after she washed that all out, she put the hot pink all over my head rather than isolating the bleached out pieces. It was at that point that I started having my usual mental tug-o-war.
On the tip of my brain and tongue was, "Uhhhh... are you sure you wanna do that?" The other, more judgemental, voice in my head butted in and said, "She's a great hairdresser with 15 years experience, I think she knows what she's doing better than YOU do." As usual, the latter voice won and I didn't say a peep. Unfortunately, this is usually what happens because that judgemental voice... it happens to be loud and pushy. You might even want to call it an asshole sometimes.
When she was washing the dye out of my hair, she kept saying, "Wow, your hair really grabbed the pink!" I kept thinking, AWESOME. Yet, imagine my face when she put me in front of the mirror, took the towel off, and a giant ray of sun happened to be beating down on my head. The highlights were FLAMIN' hot pink, while the rest of it was just slightly muted hot pink. The top of my head looked like it was on pink fire. The whole entire thing was just too pink pink pink. There was no reddish brown anything tempering it. I took a deep breath, and, here we go again. Natural Voice says, "Yeah, that's not what you signed up for." Asshole Voice goes, "Well, it's too late now. You're just gonna have to live with it!"
Thankfully, Nancy kept fussing over the fact that it turned out much differently than she expected and said, "Let me cut it and dry it a bit, and if it's still too bright, we'll fix it." One lovely, soft cut and blow-out later, I stare into the mirror and sigh. "Nancy," I said, "I loves me some pink and I appreciate your hard work but I need something less out-there. I'm sorry." I'm a risk-taking girl when it comes to beauty and my work place cuts us a wide berth to express ourselves, but I don't want to look like a goth teenager (no offense to the population, especially since I used to be one of them). Finally, score 1 for Natural Voice!
She totally fixed it and it's lovely now. By normal person standards, it's still pink and it's still out-there, but to me it looks really cool. It's like that goth teenager in me finally gets to have the hair she always wanted but could never seem to actually attain: pretty with an edge. Yahoo! And, Phew!, Nancy made copious notes in my file to not bleach out hair if doing hot pink highlights again, and not put hot pink over my entire hair.
My friend Krista, who is in a 12-step program, counseled me during a personal crisis a few weeks ago. At one point she asked me how many voices were in my head. I just couldn't imagine how to answer that question. If I said I had voices in my head, I felt I might as well admit that I'm nuts (which I am, everyone is, but you know). And, moreso, I didn't realize that the internal monologue counts as a voice, or many voices, as the case may be.
As I tip-toed around the question, she said, "Well, I'll tell you that when I started the program, I had about 50. Now I've honed that down to five key voices that help inform my world, for better or for worse." She explained them all and the purpose that each serves. It was a very interesting concept to me, so I've been trying to listen to my internal monologue carefully and figure out who is who, and what is what.
I have a lot of thoughts about where Asshole comes from. Could s/he be the amalgam of the really hardcore naysayers throughout my history? And what about Natural? Surely she is the voice that my therapist has been nurturing and trying to bring forward for years. I'm sure there are more voices in there to be identified, but only time will tell.
Last night I was hell-bent on having highlights that went right up to my scalp, as I think it makes my hair and head have more dimension, and therefore look bigger. This has less to do with wanting Texas Hair (which I do love sometimes), and has much more to do with balancing body size. See - my mom, when I was about 15 years old, told me my head looked too small for my body when I wore my hair close to my head. Moms say the darnedest things sometimes!
(Thank goodness for my friend Hyla, who once quelled a crying jag I had about above-referenced Mom comment and what I perceived was very flat hair at the time. She said, "If anything I have always thought your head is freakishly BIG for your body!" My response? "Really?? Thank god!")
At any rate, Nancy bleached out pieces of hair for the highlights while doing my overall burgundy/brown/red color, and then after she washed that all out, she put the hot pink all over my head rather than isolating the bleached out pieces. It was at that point that I started having my usual mental tug-o-war.
On the tip of my brain and tongue was, "Uhhhh... are you sure you wanna do that?" The other, more judgemental, voice in my head butted in and said, "She's a great hairdresser with 15 years experience, I think she knows what she's doing better than YOU do." As usual, the latter voice won and I didn't say a peep. Unfortunately, this is usually what happens because that judgemental voice... it happens to be loud and pushy. You might even want to call it an asshole sometimes.
When she was washing the dye out of my hair, she kept saying, "Wow, your hair really grabbed the pink!" I kept thinking, AWESOME. Yet, imagine my face when she put me in front of the mirror, took the towel off, and a giant ray of sun happened to be beating down on my head. The highlights were FLAMIN' hot pink, while the rest of it was just slightly muted hot pink. The top of my head looked like it was on pink fire. The whole entire thing was just too pink pink pink. There was no reddish brown anything tempering it. I took a deep breath, and, here we go again. Natural Voice says, "Yeah, that's not what you signed up for." Asshole Voice goes, "Well, it's too late now. You're just gonna have to live with it!"
Thankfully, Nancy kept fussing over the fact that it turned out much differently than she expected and said, "Let me cut it and dry it a bit, and if it's still too bright, we'll fix it." One lovely, soft cut and blow-out later, I stare into the mirror and sigh. "Nancy," I said, "I loves me some pink and I appreciate your hard work but I need something less out-there. I'm sorry." I'm a risk-taking girl when it comes to beauty and my work place cuts us a wide berth to express ourselves, but I don't want to look like a goth teenager (no offense to the population, especially since I used to be one of them). Finally, score 1 for Natural Voice!
She totally fixed it and it's lovely now. By normal person standards, it's still pink and it's still out-there, but to me it looks really cool. It's like that goth teenager in me finally gets to have the hair she always wanted but could never seem to actually attain: pretty with an edge. Yahoo! And, Phew!, Nancy made copious notes in my file to not bleach out hair if doing hot pink highlights again, and not put hot pink over my entire hair.
My friend Krista, who is in a 12-step program, counseled me during a personal crisis a few weeks ago. At one point she asked me how many voices were in my head. I just couldn't imagine how to answer that question. If I said I had voices in my head, I felt I might as well admit that I'm nuts (which I am, everyone is, but you know). And, moreso, I didn't realize that the internal monologue counts as a voice, or many voices, as the case may be.
As I tip-toed around the question, she said, "Well, I'll tell you that when I started the program, I had about 50. Now I've honed that down to five key voices that help inform my world, for better or for worse." She explained them all and the purpose that each serves. It was a very interesting concept to me, so I've been trying to listen to my internal monologue carefully and figure out who is who, and what is what.
I have a lot of thoughts about where Asshole comes from. Could s/he be the amalgam of the really hardcore naysayers throughout my history? And what about Natural? Surely she is the voice that my therapist has been nurturing and trying to bring forward for years. I'm sure there are more voices in there to be identified, but only time will tell.
09 May 2009
Happy Birthday, Alicia
Today is my sister Alicia's birthday. She passed away just over 5 years ago at age 42, so she would have been 47 today. I ate mexican food for dinner and played hours worth of cards (Solitaire) - all in memory of her. I gave her a tribute shout out a la Jabbawockeez when I sat down to do the aforementioned. I also told her I missed playing cards with her in a big way because now no one plays with me. (Unless Honey Bunny and I are camping, on vacation or really, really bored at home.)
Alicia and I used to play Rummy 500, Go Fish, Crazy 8's, War, 21 for hours while drinking Malibu Rum & Coke, and often deep into the night. The longer we played the more slap happy and drunk we got, and the verbally abusive teasing and air horn-like laughing got out of hand. At some point, we started wearing our mom's sun visors while we played, to look like old school poker dealers.
The card sessions were usually preceded by a large mexican dinner at Carlos O'Brien's (which is just not the same anymore since it left the Plaza, which also is just not the same anymore). We would always ogle a waiter or two. I went for the scruffy college intellectual types, while she went for anything tall with a bubble butt.
I was 9 when she moved out of the house, as she was 11 years older than me. We only had a couple years together at "home" as adults. She was rescued in 1991 by our parents from poverty and ill health, after her husband left her, from the house she was being evicted from in Texas. They brought her back to California to start a new life. My reign as the only child and sole resident of the three bedroom/one bathroom suite known as the upper level of our house came to an end. It was a little rough having Alicia back in my life daily, and having my space invaded.
And I'm not gonna lie... sometimes she was a social liability. Alicia could be funny, clever and affable, but she was also slightly developmentally delayed. She didn't always have a great sense of personal space, boundaries or social etiquette. Most people complained about her while simultaneously wanting to like her.
A couple years later, the night before I moved up to San Francisco, we had a raging party at our friend Bill's house. Alicia worked for Domino's Pizza and had an extremely hot coworker named Ben that I'd lusted after for months. She joined the party, Ben in tow, when their shift ended at 11pm. She asked Ben and I to come out to the back patio with her, turned to Ben and told him that I was moving to San Francisco and that he should kiss me goodbye, and then she turned and left us to be alone. Awkward. But, sweet, right?
The other thing she did, sober, was keep the party going until about 4am, at which point she turned to me and said, "I guess we ought to go since Dad wants us to leave at 6am for Frisco." As she drove us home and I sipped on my Coors Light, I said to her, "Dad is going to kill me... I've never stayed out all night that he knows about, and I stink like booze." She replied, "Don't you worry about Dad, I'll take care of it. Just go straight upstairs and shower and get ready to leave." I never knew what she told him but he didn't say anything to me. Of course, there wasn't much of a chance since I passed out in the back seat before we turned off our street and slept for the next seven hours. She did too, next to me in the back seat.
In 1994, I returned home for the summer to work as a flower delivery person. Alicia was still working at Domino's as a pizza delivery person. One afternoon I came home from my shift to my mom bustling nervously around the house, putting on her shoes and gathering her purse. I asked what was going on. She said, "Alicia's been in an accident of some sort... I guess she's having problems seeing out of one eye... we have to go to the hospital." I told her to not be so nervous, we would go meet Alicia at the hospital and see what was going on. To this day, I don't know if she knew exactly what was going on and was protecting me from a freak out, or if the hospital hadn't fully explained what happened.
What happened was a broken sternum, four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and knee, and complete loss of not just vision, but of her entire right eye. She'd fallen asleep at the wheel on her way to work, and the car veered off to hit a concrete street lamp, which then collapsed on the car. When the nurse met us at the door, she brought us immediately back into the emergency room, as Alicia was about to go into surgery. As we followed her brisk pace through the hall, the severity of the situation started to dawn on me. I wasn't prepared to see my sister laying on the table trying desperately to catch her breath, with blood running from her eye down into a pool on the table, crying, saying "I fucked up, I fucked up" over and over again. I will never forget our mom saying to her, "Alicia, don't say 'fuck' in public." I ran out of the room and to a pay phone to call our sister Amy. I was crying so hard I could only choke out "Alicia...", and then Amy started yelling at me to tell her what the hell had happened, panic rising in her voice. It was one of the most heartbreaking and scary moments of my life, at least to that point. Alicia went through a few surgeries to fix her eye, but ultimately it had to be removed and she wore a prosthetic eye from that point on. It took a very long time for her to recover physically from that accident and work again.
Flash forward to the summer of 2003. I was so happy to hear that she was moving to Las Vegas with her boyfriend and his children. By that point, she had lived with my parents for 10 years and about as many years had passed since the accident. She was ready to go live her own life on her own terms. Living with the children, each one of whom had special needs, was hard on her, though. Every time I talked to her, she sounded worn. Her boyfriend was a commercial truck driver and was on the road a lot of the time. The last time I talked to her was on the phone in early January, just after Christmas. They hadn't had the money to come to Riverside for Christmas, so I didn't see her like I normally did over the holidays. She asked me during that call if I thought Honey Bunny was "the one" and I said yes, even though we'd only been dating for four months. She told me her life was not as great as she thought it would be away from home. I noted that she sounded like she had a bad cold. She mentioned that she'd been sick with the flu for two weeks.
Again, I'm not going to lie. We were not close anymore. Our lives went in different directions over the 11 years I lived in San Francisco and she remained at home. Talking to her on the phone was difficult. She would often watch TV during conversations, and would get distracted and stop talking mid-sentence or I would realize mid-tangent that she wasn't actually listening to me. The only thing we really had in common was complaining about our parents... how nuts my mom is and how cold my dad could be. I regret it now, of course. Hindsight is always 20/20. If I'd known she was going to pass away midlife, I would have made a better effort to remain connected to her.
That January morning of 2004, I wore my black rattan slides to work because nothing else went with my outfit. They smelled badly and were particularly uncomfortable that morning. I remember walking into my office, stepping out of the slides and onto the carpet barefoot, sitting down and turning on my computer. It was one of the only days I was on time to work. I was engrossed in a spreadsheet when the phone rang. It was Amy, and she was crying. I said, "Oh no... did Gaia pass away?" Her cat had been sick. She said, "No. Alicia." I sat there for a moment trying to figure out what she meant. "WHAT?", I said. She choked out, "Alicia... she died this morning." She died from congestive heart failure.
If you've ever endured the loss of someone close to you, or from your close family, then you know exactly what I'm about to say. It's like the earth stops rotating. You question whether - and hope - you're in a dream. You become throbbing numb. You ask, "How did this happen?" because it truly seems beyond reality that you will no longer see this person (or pet), talk to her, for the rest of your life (or ever, depending on what you believe). It was unreal. My supervisor managed the situation, as she managed every situation at that time. She ordered my coworker (ex-crush/FB/BFF, Tim, ACK) to drive me home in my car, because she said I was in no condition to drive. I called Honey Bunny before I left the office. I also booked a flight to Riverside online before I left the office. I could have driven home just fine, if you ask me. I was still thinking clearly then. It would be about two weeks until the truly crushing and seemingly permanent numbness and grief set it.
Five years later, I feel like I'm managing my grief well. Alicia is alive and well in my memory without that memory being linked directly to heartbreak. When I meditate, sometimes she and Euglina make an appearance to say hi. I'm planning an Alicia tattoo for the opposite hip as Euglina's tattoo. Together they serve as inspiration and push me forward in life.
Alicia and I used to play Rummy 500, Go Fish, Crazy 8's, War, 21 for hours while drinking Malibu Rum & Coke, and often deep into the night. The longer we played the more slap happy and drunk we got, and the verbally abusive teasing and air horn-like laughing got out of hand. At some point, we started wearing our mom's sun visors while we played, to look like old school poker dealers.
The card sessions were usually preceded by a large mexican dinner at Carlos O'Brien's (which is just not the same anymore since it left the Plaza, which also is just not the same anymore). We would always ogle a waiter or two. I went for the scruffy college intellectual types, while she went for anything tall with a bubble butt.
I was 9 when she moved out of the house, as she was 11 years older than me. We only had a couple years together at "home" as adults. She was rescued in 1991 by our parents from poverty and ill health, after her husband left her, from the house she was being evicted from in Texas. They brought her back to California to start a new life. My reign as the only child and sole resident of the three bedroom/one bathroom suite known as the upper level of our house came to an end. It was a little rough having Alicia back in my life daily, and having my space invaded.
And I'm not gonna lie... sometimes she was a social liability. Alicia could be funny, clever and affable, but she was also slightly developmentally delayed. She didn't always have a great sense of personal space, boundaries or social etiquette. Most people complained about her while simultaneously wanting to like her.
A couple years later, the night before I moved up to San Francisco, we had a raging party at our friend Bill's house. Alicia worked for Domino's Pizza and had an extremely hot coworker named Ben that I'd lusted after for months. She joined the party, Ben in tow, when their shift ended at 11pm. She asked Ben and I to come out to the back patio with her, turned to Ben and told him that I was moving to San Francisco and that he should kiss me goodbye, and then she turned and left us to be alone. Awkward. But, sweet, right?
The other thing she did, sober, was keep the party going until about 4am, at which point she turned to me and said, "I guess we ought to go since Dad wants us to leave at 6am for Frisco." As she drove us home and I sipped on my Coors Light, I said to her, "Dad is going to kill me... I've never stayed out all night that he knows about, and I stink like booze." She replied, "Don't you worry about Dad, I'll take care of it. Just go straight upstairs and shower and get ready to leave." I never knew what she told him but he didn't say anything to me. Of course, there wasn't much of a chance since I passed out in the back seat before we turned off our street and slept for the next seven hours. She did too, next to me in the back seat.
In 1994, I returned home for the summer to work as a flower delivery person. Alicia was still working at Domino's as a pizza delivery person. One afternoon I came home from my shift to my mom bustling nervously around the house, putting on her shoes and gathering her purse. I asked what was going on. She said, "Alicia's been in an accident of some sort... I guess she's having problems seeing out of one eye... we have to go to the hospital." I told her to not be so nervous, we would go meet Alicia at the hospital and see what was going on. To this day, I don't know if she knew exactly what was going on and was protecting me from a freak out, or if the hospital hadn't fully explained what happened.
What happened was a broken sternum, four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and knee, and complete loss of not just vision, but of her entire right eye. She'd fallen asleep at the wheel on her way to work, and the car veered off to hit a concrete street lamp, which then collapsed on the car. When the nurse met us at the door, she brought us immediately back into the emergency room, as Alicia was about to go into surgery. As we followed her brisk pace through the hall, the severity of the situation started to dawn on me. I wasn't prepared to see my sister laying on the table trying desperately to catch her breath, with blood running from her eye down into a pool on the table, crying, saying "I fucked up, I fucked up" over and over again. I will never forget our mom saying to her, "Alicia, don't say 'fuck' in public." I ran out of the room and to a pay phone to call our sister Amy. I was crying so hard I could only choke out "Alicia...", and then Amy started yelling at me to tell her what the hell had happened, panic rising in her voice. It was one of the most heartbreaking and scary moments of my life, at least to that point. Alicia went through a few surgeries to fix her eye, but ultimately it had to be removed and she wore a prosthetic eye from that point on. It took a very long time for her to recover physically from that accident and work again.
Flash forward to the summer of 2003. I was so happy to hear that she was moving to Las Vegas with her boyfriend and his children. By that point, she had lived with my parents for 10 years and about as many years had passed since the accident. She was ready to go live her own life on her own terms. Living with the children, each one of whom had special needs, was hard on her, though. Every time I talked to her, she sounded worn. Her boyfriend was a commercial truck driver and was on the road a lot of the time. The last time I talked to her was on the phone in early January, just after Christmas. They hadn't had the money to come to Riverside for Christmas, so I didn't see her like I normally did over the holidays. She asked me during that call if I thought Honey Bunny was "the one" and I said yes, even though we'd only been dating for four months. She told me her life was not as great as she thought it would be away from home. I noted that she sounded like she had a bad cold. She mentioned that she'd been sick with the flu for two weeks.
Again, I'm not going to lie. We were not close anymore. Our lives went in different directions over the 11 years I lived in San Francisco and she remained at home. Talking to her on the phone was difficult. She would often watch TV during conversations, and would get distracted and stop talking mid-sentence or I would realize mid-tangent that she wasn't actually listening to me. The only thing we really had in common was complaining about our parents... how nuts my mom is and how cold my dad could be. I regret it now, of course. Hindsight is always 20/20. If I'd known she was going to pass away midlife, I would have made a better effort to remain connected to her.
That January morning of 2004, I wore my black rattan slides to work because nothing else went with my outfit. They smelled badly and were particularly uncomfortable that morning. I remember walking into my office, stepping out of the slides and onto the carpet barefoot, sitting down and turning on my computer. It was one of the only days I was on time to work. I was engrossed in a spreadsheet when the phone rang. It was Amy, and she was crying. I said, "Oh no... did Gaia pass away?" Her cat had been sick. She said, "No. Alicia." I sat there for a moment trying to figure out what she meant. "WHAT?", I said. She choked out, "Alicia... she died this morning." She died from congestive heart failure.
If you've ever endured the loss of someone close to you, or from your close family, then you know exactly what I'm about to say. It's like the earth stops rotating. You question whether - and hope - you're in a dream. You become throbbing numb. You ask, "How did this happen?" because it truly seems beyond reality that you will no longer see this person (or pet), talk to her, for the rest of your life (or ever, depending on what you believe). It was unreal. My supervisor managed the situation, as she managed every situation at that time. She ordered my coworker (ex-crush/FB/BFF, Tim, ACK) to drive me home in my car, because she said I was in no condition to drive. I called Honey Bunny before I left the office. I also booked a flight to Riverside online before I left the office. I could have driven home just fine, if you ask me. I was still thinking clearly then. It would be about two weeks until the truly crushing and seemingly permanent numbness and grief set it.
Five years later, I feel like I'm managing my grief well. Alicia is alive and well in my memory without that memory being linked directly to heartbreak. When I meditate, sometimes she and Euglina make an appearance to say hi. I'm planning an Alicia tattoo for the opposite hip as Euglina's tattoo. Together they serve as inspiration and push me forward in life.
22 April 2009
Steam rollers & crab apples
Every so often, I get into what Honey Bunny (lovingly) refers to as "steam roller" mode, or what my mom (sigh!) used to call "being a crab apple". Now would be one of those times.
It seems everyone in my path isn't smart enough, fast enough, thorough enough, savvy enough, and so on and so forth. And good lord, why oh WHY does the woman in the cube across from me droopily shuffle around the hallways all day long, stopping and droopily talking to people who so obviously don't want to interface with her for 10 seconds, let alone 10 minutes, about such fascinating topics as the next union luncheon and why handling printer toner cartridges can be bad for your health?
In other words, why can't everyone be like ME??
I'm kind of kidding, of course, and yet... kind of not. Right now it feels like I'm running in full efficiency mode where I can see potential problems coming down the pipeline from a mile away and I address them with frightening determination and resolve. It's uncharacteristic for me to be so out-there about my opinions, and thus, solutions to problems. I generally get pegged as the indecisive one, for fuck's sake! Surely this is a bi-product of having had to slowly tighten the screws on the two people I supervise, and do so in the most mindful, strategic (and sure, okay, slightly Machiavellian) way possible.
It's also, I'm guessing, a bi-product of having read so much Candace Bushnell recently, and specifically Lipstick Jungle. Believe me, I don't at all fancy myself a high powered business woman. If anything, it just underscores the fact that I have really horrible boundaries when it comes to characters in books, and particularly those that I've been following through several books or, say, an accompanying TV show. I see parts of these characters' lives in mine, and vice versa. Creepy, I know. And yet, that's what I consider a satisfying book read. It's the only way to explain that I've read all 12 Gossip Girl books, and con mucho gusto. And maybe all the It Girl books too, but you didn't hear that from me...
Anyhow, back to stupid people. Ahem... I mean, my attitude problem. It's a crazy thing to be in this head space. On one hand, I feel like I'm really high-functioning, but on the other, I think it's quite off-putting to, ehm, pretty much everyone in my personal life - including my hubbie. Why should I, at 7am when we are preparing our breakfasts, be pestering Honey Bunny about the best, freshest, most nutritious dinner that he could prepare for us that night after work? Nice.
I need to back it off a bit and chill out, clearly. A curtain to draw across my cube opening would be a good idea as well. Possibly some noise-cancelling headphones, and we're good to go! And at home, I need to ixnay on the advice-giving and just enjoy my husband and my life for what it is. Sheesh!
It seems everyone in my path isn't smart enough, fast enough, thorough enough, savvy enough, and so on and so forth. And good lord, why oh WHY does the woman in the cube across from me droopily shuffle around the hallways all day long, stopping and droopily talking to people who so obviously don't want to interface with her for 10 seconds, let alone 10 minutes, about such fascinating topics as the next union luncheon and why handling printer toner cartridges can be bad for your health?
In other words, why can't everyone be like ME??
I'm kind of kidding, of course, and yet... kind of not. Right now it feels like I'm running in full efficiency mode where I can see potential problems coming down the pipeline from a mile away and I address them with frightening determination and resolve. It's uncharacteristic for me to be so out-there about my opinions, and thus, solutions to problems. I generally get pegged as the indecisive one, for fuck's sake! Surely this is a bi-product of having had to slowly tighten the screws on the two people I supervise, and do so in the most mindful, strategic (and sure, okay, slightly Machiavellian) way possible.
It's also, I'm guessing, a bi-product of having read so much Candace Bushnell recently, and specifically Lipstick Jungle. Believe me, I don't at all fancy myself a high powered business woman. If anything, it just underscores the fact that I have really horrible boundaries when it comes to characters in books, and particularly those that I've been following through several books or, say, an accompanying TV show. I see parts of these characters' lives in mine, and vice versa. Creepy, I know. And yet, that's what I consider a satisfying book read. It's the only way to explain that I've read all 12 Gossip Girl books, and con mucho gusto. And maybe all the It Girl books too, but you didn't hear that from me...
Anyhow, back to stupid people. Ahem... I mean, my attitude problem. It's a crazy thing to be in this head space. On one hand, I feel like I'm really high-functioning, but on the other, I think it's quite off-putting to, ehm, pretty much everyone in my personal life - including my hubbie. Why should I, at 7am when we are preparing our breakfasts, be pestering Honey Bunny about the best, freshest, most nutritious dinner that he could prepare for us that night after work? Nice.
I need to back it off a bit and chill out, clearly. A curtain to draw across my cube opening would be a good idea as well. Possibly some noise-cancelling headphones, and we're good to go! And at home, I need to ixnay on the advice-giving and just enjoy my husband and my life for what it is. Sheesh!
13 March 2009
Being on the outside
I think there are two ways to be on the outside, at least in the way that I'm thinking. You have either been on the inside and then all of a sudden find yourself on the outside, or you have always been on the outside wanting (or not) to be on the inside. Either way, I feel like my life has been full of the feeling and while it is usually a familiar place, it's not very comfortable.
I'd mentioned in a previous post that my beloved cat companion of 12 years passed away in late November. It's so strange now to realize how much my cat helped define me. She was like my kid, and I her cat-mom. It took me a long time to realize that vacations were as much about the sense of coming home to her, our renewed bond, as they were about getting away. The last few days of my honeymoon were the most fun of the whole trip, but also the most heightened because I missed Kitty so much and was desperate to see and hold her again.
When I went to visit friends and my parents for Christmas this past year, I "hit the wall going 90" (as Bethenny Frankel would say). I was faced with many couples, all of whom had a pet or pets that they call family, much in the way Honey Bunny and I called ourselves, including Kitty, a family. That feeling of being on the outside, when I was once very much on the inside, was intensely painful. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to come home and hold Kitty while Honey Bunny wrapped his arms around both of us, but Kitty was no longer here.
Since then it's gotten a bit easier, as time has passed and I've gotten used to Kitty's absence and have had to redefine my family to include only Honey Bunny and I for now. But there are occasional glimpses into what it used to feel like being on the inside, such as this photo, and this one, of two of my favorite (married) Flickr folks having arrived back from a long trip to New Zealand to the delight of their doggies and themselves.
In a strange twist of events, I found myself on the outside, where I always have been on this particular matter, looking in and confronting a different, very unfamiliar, demon. Honey Bunny and I stopped using contraception in January as we felt it was time to let fate take it's course. Those of you who know me, go ahead and start laughing. I don't really do "fate taking it's course", and that's exactly how its played out.
Instead of just letting whatever happen whenever, I get a bit obsessed each month, about a week before my Aunt Dot arrives, with wondering if I'm prego. And so far, I'm not yet and it's... disappointing? Logically it's a good thing because I want to party in Vegas for my friend Hilary's 40th birthday in May, and I would like to enjoy being married to HB sans child for longer, and so on and so forth. But logic does not necessarily quell my nutty, emotional, one-track mind.
Enter a close female coworker who very recently found herself pregnant and not wanting to be. She has had her children already and this pregnancy was merely a mistake. I hate to be a Sex and the City cliche but I admit I felt a bit like Charlotte after finding out Miranda is pregnant. Why in the hell did my coworker get pregnant when she wasn't even trying and yet Honey Bunny and I are, so far, without child? It made me unexpectedly peevish.
My coworker ended up having an abortion and, for the first time in my life, the idea of abortion seemed so... unpleasant. I have always been dogmatic about my pro-choice stance, and to find myself confronted with a strangely different perspective on abortion is very disconcerting. I will always be pro-choice (and pro-adoption) as long as the world is overpopulated, as long as children are abused and removed from their homes into foster care, as long as we have to compensate for irresponsible people such as Nadya Suleman and her fertility doctor, and so forth. But, in my own little microcosm, the actual act of abortion is now more real than it has ever been.
Somehow, the idea of being on the outside manages to relate back to being fat as well! I've been wondering lately if I spent years of obsessing about becoming thin - strong emphasis on grade and high school - mostly because I hated being on the outside of the thin girl world (and, consequently, the Jordache jeans world, the Contempo Casuals world, etc). I don't deny that I wanted to see myself as thin in a mirror... but why? Because I wanted to look that way, or because I wanted to belong?
Now that I'm in my 30's, it's vastly different, thankfully. Health is the most important thing, whatever that looks like. I don't have that sense of needing to belong to the thin world, just for the sake of being on the inside, anymore. It seems priorities and perspectives change as we celebrate more birthdays, which is a "no duh" if there ever was one. But, you'll have to excuse me, people, I'm still getting accustomed to being an adult...
I'd mentioned in a previous post that my beloved cat companion of 12 years passed away in late November. It's so strange now to realize how much my cat helped define me. She was like my kid, and I her cat-mom. It took me a long time to realize that vacations were as much about the sense of coming home to her, our renewed bond, as they were about getting away. The last few days of my honeymoon were the most fun of the whole trip, but also the most heightened because I missed Kitty so much and was desperate to see and hold her again.
When I went to visit friends and my parents for Christmas this past year, I "hit the wall going 90" (as Bethenny Frankel would say). I was faced with many couples, all of whom had a pet or pets that they call family, much in the way Honey Bunny and I called ourselves, including Kitty, a family. That feeling of being on the outside, when I was once very much on the inside, was intensely painful. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to come home and hold Kitty while Honey Bunny wrapped his arms around both of us, but Kitty was no longer here.
Since then it's gotten a bit easier, as time has passed and I've gotten used to Kitty's absence and have had to redefine my family to include only Honey Bunny and I for now. But there are occasional glimpses into what it used to feel like being on the inside, such as this photo, and this one, of two of my favorite (married) Flickr folks having arrived back from a long trip to New Zealand to the delight of their doggies and themselves.
In a strange twist of events, I found myself on the outside, where I always have been on this particular matter, looking in and confronting a different, very unfamiliar, demon. Honey Bunny and I stopped using contraception in January as we felt it was time to let fate take it's course. Those of you who know me, go ahead and start laughing. I don't really do "fate taking it's course", and that's exactly how its played out.
Instead of just letting whatever happen whenever, I get a bit obsessed each month, about a week before my Aunt Dot arrives, with wondering if I'm prego. And so far, I'm not yet and it's... disappointing? Logically it's a good thing because I want to party in Vegas for my friend Hilary's 40th birthday in May, and I would like to enjoy being married to HB sans child for longer, and so on and so forth. But logic does not necessarily quell my nutty, emotional, one-track mind.
Enter a close female coworker who very recently found herself pregnant and not wanting to be. She has had her children already and this pregnancy was merely a mistake. I hate to be a Sex and the City cliche but I admit I felt a bit like Charlotte after finding out Miranda is pregnant. Why in the hell did my coworker get pregnant when she wasn't even trying and yet Honey Bunny and I are, so far, without child? It made me unexpectedly peevish.
My coworker ended up having an abortion and, for the first time in my life, the idea of abortion seemed so... unpleasant. I have always been dogmatic about my pro-choice stance, and to find myself confronted with a strangely different perspective on abortion is very disconcerting. I will always be pro-choice (and pro-adoption) as long as the world is overpopulated, as long as children are abused and removed from their homes into foster care, as long as we have to compensate for irresponsible people such as Nadya Suleman and her fertility doctor, and so forth. But, in my own little microcosm, the actual act of abortion is now more real than it has ever been.
Somehow, the idea of being on the outside manages to relate back to being fat as well! I've been wondering lately if I spent years of obsessing about becoming thin - strong emphasis on grade and high school - mostly because I hated being on the outside of the thin girl world (and, consequently, the Jordache jeans world, the Contempo Casuals world, etc). I don't deny that I wanted to see myself as thin in a mirror... but why? Because I wanted to look that way, or because I wanted to belong?
Now that I'm in my 30's, it's vastly different, thankfully. Health is the most important thing, whatever that looks like. I don't have that sense of needing to belong to the thin world, just for the sake of being on the inside, anymore. It seems priorities and perspectives change as we celebrate more birthdays, which is a "no duh" if there ever was one. But, you'll have to excuse me, people, I'm still getting accustomed to being an adult...
14 February 2009
Happy Valentine's Day!
V-Day has always been my favorite of holidays, even when I was single and called it "VD". Now that I'm coupled - and I'm sorry to brag but I rarely take the opportunity to do so - I love this holiday even more. Sure, Honey Bunny and I celebrate our love year 'round but it's more fun on this day. It's playful, sensuous and indulgent.
For instance, this year my sweetheart got me some chocolate. And by "some", I mean a bag of cherry-chocolate truffles and four gourmet chocolate bars of varying flavors. I've only eaten 1-2 squares of each bar, but I'm on a sugar and caffeine high so potent right now, I could easily organize the closets and filing cabinets of everyone I know and still need more to do! (I'm sure the fact that I made cupcakes for HB with a bunch of special flavorings a la Delessio Market Miniature Cupcakes, and thus had to taste-test my various frostings about a million times to get them right, has nothing to do with this.)
For your own sake, go out immediately and find yourself some Vosges Haute Chocolate. Three of the four bars HB gave me are from this woman's line of chocolate stuff and they are TO DIE FOR!
I am, and always have been, a chocolate whore but in the past couple years - as I've gotten more into organic food - I've focused in on super dark chocolate and high quality brands. Don't take that to mean that I'm a food snob or have become discriminatory, because I'm pretty much down for any chocolate of any brand any time of day. It's just that when a food comes along that is so divine that it makes me want to slow down and savor every bite, I find that a miracle. (For myriad reasons, which I'll save for another day's posting.)
My favorite: the Woolloomooloo Exotic Candy Bar. Holy shit. HB and I both had mouth orgasms when we tasted it. It's equal parts chocolately, spicy, nutty, coconutty, and buttery, and it's both sweet and savory at the same time. The only way I can describe it is that it's absolutely perfectly blended.
A close second is the Barcelona Exotic Candy Bar. Yum, dude. Again, it was perfectly blended and both sweet and savory at the same time. I never understood the theory behind salted caramel... until I actually tasted it. I was reminded of that when I tasted this bar. Salt and chocolate... who knew?
The other Vosges he got me is the Calindia Exotic Candy Bar, which is incredibly good but I call this bar 'a matter of taste'. Not everyone would groove on it because it has a lot of strong and unique flavors. Have you ever eaten at an Indian restaurant and after you pay the bill the waiter comes to your table with a little bowl of colorful seeds, offering you a tiny spoonful to "aid your digestion"? Those seeds are primarily composed of cardamom, as is this bar.
It's funny, actually, that he bought me Vosges because for months now, I've been eyeing the Mo's Bacon Bar at our local chi-chi grocery store. I've been a vegetarian all my life but I readily admit that bacon is my kyrptonite. I thought the Mo's bar would just be a wacky kyrptonite novelty but now that I've tasted her chocolate, I'm pretty sure it's going to be damn good.
The other bar Honey gifted me, and not to be downplayed because it is ridiculously good as well, is Blush by New Tree. 73% cocoa!! I'm picky about my cherry flavored food, and this one is perfect blended with the super duper dark chocolate. Yum.
I hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's Day this year!
For instance, this year my sweetheart got me some chocolate. And by "some", I mean a bag of cherry-chocolate truffles and four gourmet chocolate bars of varying flavors. I've only eaten 1-2 squares of each bar, but I'm on a sugar and caffeine high so potent right now, I could easily organize the closets and filing cabinets of everyone I know and still need more to do! (I'm sure the fact that I made cupcakes for HB with a bunch of special flavorings a la Delessio Market Miniature Cupcakes, and thus had to taste-test my various frostings about a million times to get them right, has nothing to do with this.)
For your own sake, go out immediately and find yourself some Vosges Haute Chocolate. Three of the four bars HB gave me are from this woman's line of chocolate stuff and they are TO DIE FOR!
I am, and always have been, a chocolate whore but in the past couple years - as I've gotten more into organic food - I've focused in on super dark chocolate and high quality brands. Don't take that to mean that I'm a food snob or have become discriminatory, because I'm pretty much down for any chocolate of any brand any time of day. It's just that when a food comes along that is so divine that it makes me want to slow down and savor every bite, I find that a miracle. (For myriad reasons, which I'll save for another day's posting.)
My favorite: the Woolloomooloo Exotic Candy Bar. Holy shit. HB and I both had mouth orgasms when we tasted it. It's equal parts chocolately, spicy, nutty, coconutty, and buttery, and it's both sweet and savory at the same time. The only way I can describe it is that it's absolutely perfectly blended.
A close second is the Barcelona Exotic Candy Bar. Yum, dude. Again, it was perfectly blended and both sweet and savory at the same time. I never understood the theory behind salted caramel... until I actually tasted it. I was reminded of that when I tasted this bar. Salt and chocolate... who knew?
The other Vosges he got me is the Calindia Exotic Candy Bar, which is incredibly good but I call this bar 'a matter of taste'. Not everyone would groove on it because it has a lot of strong and unique flavors. Have you ever eaten at an Indian restaurant and after you pay the bill the waiter comes to your table with a little bowl of colorful seeds, offering you a tiny spoonful to "aid your digestion"? Those seeds are primarily composed of cardamom, as is this bar.
It's funny, actually, that he bought me Vosges because for months now, I've been eyeing the Mo's Bacon Bar at our local chi-chi grocery store. I've been a vegetarian all my life but I readily admit that bacon is my kyrptonite. I thought the Mo's bar would just be a wacky kyrptonite novelty but now that I've tasted her chocolate, I'm pretty sure it's going to be damn good.
The other bar Honey gifted me, and not to be downplayed because it is ridiculously good as well, is Blush by New Tree. 73% cocoa!! I'm picky about my cherry flavored food, and this one is perfect blended with the super duper dark chocolate. Yum.
I hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's Day this year!
05 February 2009
Newness & the MB Mafia
Firstly, you may notice a bit of a different title and header for this blog. During my usual 4am "let's contemplate the universe" wake-up call this morning, I realized that if I continue to post as I have for the past year then this is no longer a blog about all things fat but is instead just a blog about my life. Additionally, I realized that I had unwittingly painted myself into a corner with the original topic of this blog (speaking out for all of fatkind, which has grown tiresome) and that it's time to just let go and write without having to tie it all back to fat advocacy. So, from here on out, it will consciously continue to be about my personal life and how fatness may or may not color it. Thanks for coming to my party!
I preface this next section by saying that I'm at home sick today and therefore a little bit crabby and a little bit bored. This morning I took my usual spin around the internet, as I always do, by checking out People, Go Fug Yourself and various blogs by friends and non-friends alike. One of my very favorite blogs, and has been for over a year, is Dooce. Heather Armstrong has the ability to pull off hilarious and deadly serious with equal aplomb, and generally within the same posting. She also takes great photographs and I would give my left arm to have her decorate my apartment. And recently, she got involved in a little project called Momversation.
As someone who has increasingly been toying with the idea of becoming a mom, Momversation originally fascinated me. One of my biggest fears about becoming a parent is, and always has been, that being hip seems to no longer be a possibility after giving birth. The bloggers involved with Momversation all seem to eschew this notion and that's what drew me to them. They are all incredibly hip ladies with interesting lives both inside and outside their respective "mom blogs".
I was drawn to one of these bloggers in particular, but I'm not going to say who it is. I bookmarked her blog and read every day just as I read Dooce. At first, just like with Dooce, I couldn't get enough and sought more reading in her blog's archive. Then, slowly, I began to get irritated with her postings - yet I wasn't sure why. I took her off my bookmarks one day only to put her back on after a week's respite. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Today, and again this could be strongly colored by crabby sickness, I started to put my finger on what bugged me... and not just about her specifically, but about "them" generally. This was after I watched one particularly annoying episode of Momversation. Whereas I might find some of the Momversations amusing in sections, it is not particularly helpful in any way to someone contemplating motherhood, to someone who may be on the cusp of experiencing all the things these women are talking about. On a very base level, I'm not sure that Momversation really "works" (as a platform/vehicle for information).
In general, after sampling each woman's blog, I find there is a strange self-righteousness about what these women have to say about their lives and their parenting abilities. I'm getting the feeling that they think they belong to some exclusive club that they themselves founded, and you better be good enough, smart enough, savvy enough, hip enough, whatever, in order to obtain your own key. (And let me clarify, I've never felt this way about Dooce!)
I sat here thinking, "Geezus, it's like they're the self-appointed 'power ladies of lunching' a la Lipstick Jungle or Cashmere Mafia. Huh... mafia. Yes! They're the Mom Blog Mafia!
There are several other blogs I read by women who happen to be mothers, such as author Jennifer Weiner's, and they blog about their kids - sometimes in great depth - but it's not the complete focus, nor is their supposed unparalleled parenting abilities. If anything, I very much appreciate those who are self-deprecating, or at least conscious of their vulnerability, and that applies to pretty much all areas of life (not just blogs and the internet).
Ok, so why does this hold so much energy for me? That's a whole other can of worms for my therapist to open but for the purpose of this posting, it irks me because I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to be one of the Mafia... with a hugely successful blog that supports not only me financially but my husband too, with a couple books on the shelf at Amazon.com, with some sort of wildly successful off-internet pursuit such as photography, graphic design or filmmaking. And, it makes me feel like a bit of a failure that all that stuff isn't in the cards for me, at least at this point in life. I'm not faulting any of them for "making" me feel this way, believe me. I just need to take the anonymous Mom Blogger off my bookmarks list for good, as well as Momversation, and live my own damn life.
As an aside, and quite honestly also a reason I feel irked, BlogHer rejected my request to be added to their Blog Directory, based on non-consistent posting. They were nice about it and all, but just adds a layer to my Mafia theory.
On a last note, one unusual blog that always cheers me up, no matter what, is Heather Champ's Flickr photostream.
I preface this next section by saying that I'm at home sick today and therefore a little bit crabby and a little bit bored. This morning I took my usual spin around the internet, as I always do, by checking out People, Go Fug Yourself and various blogs by friends and non-friends alike. One of my very favorite blogs, and has been for over a year, is Dooce. Heather Armstrong has the ability to pull off hilarious and deadly serious with equal aplomb, and generally within the same posting. She also takes great photographs and I would give my left arm to have her decorate my apartment. And recently, she got involved in a little project called Momversation.
As someone who has increasingly been toying with the idea of becoming a mom, Momversation originally fascinated me. One of my biggest fears about becoming a parent is, and always has been, that being hip seems to no longer be a possibility after giving birth. The bloggers involved with Momversation all seem to eschew this notion and that's what drew me to them. They are all incredibly hip ladies with interesting lives both inside and outside their respective "mom blogs".
I was drawn to one of these bloggers in particular, but I'm not going to say who it is. I bookmarked her blog and read every day just as I read Dooce. At first, just like with Dooce, I couldn't get enough and sought more reading in her blog's archive. Then, slowly, I began to get irritated with her postings - yet I wasn't sure why. I took her off my bookmarks one day only to put her back on after a week's respite. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Today, and again this could be strongly colored by crabby sickness, I started to put my finger on what bugged me... and not just about her specifically, but about "them" generally. This was after I watched one particularly annoying episode of Momversation. Whereas I might find some of the Momversations amusing in sections, it is not particularly helpful in any way to someone contemplating motherhood, to someone who may be on the cusp of experiencing all the things these women are talking about. On a very base level, I'm not sure that Momversation really "works" (as a platform/vehicle for information).
In general, after sampling each woman's blog, I find there is a strange self-righteousness about what these women have to say about their lives and their parenting abilities. I'm getting the feeling that they think they belong to some exclusive club that they themselves founded, and you better be good enough, smart enough, savvy enough, hip enough, whatever, in order to obtain your own key. (And let me clarify, I've never felt this way about Dooce!)
I sat here thinking, "Geezus, it's like they're the self-appointed 'power ladies of lunching' a la Lipstick Jungle or Cashmere Mafia. Huh... mafia. Yes! They're the Mom Blog Mafia!
There are several other blogs I read by women who happen to be mothers, such as author Jennifer Weiner's, and they blog about their kids - sometimes in great depth - but it's not the complete focus, nor is their supposed unparalleled parenting abilities. If anything, I very much appreciate those who are self-deprecating, or at least conscious of their vulnerability, and that applies to pretty much all areas of life (not just blogs and the internet).
Ok, so why does this hold so much energy for me? That's a whole other can of worms for my therapist to open but for the purpose of this posting, it irks me because I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to be one of the Mafia... with a hugely successful blog that supports not only me financially but my husband too, with a couple books on the shelf at Amazon.com, with some sort of wildly successful off-internet pursuit such as photography, graphic design or filmmaking. And, it makes me feel like a bit of a failure that all that stuff isn't in the cards for me, at least at this point in life. I'm not faulting any of them for "making" me feel this way, believe me. I just need to take the anonymous Mom Blogger off my bookmarks list for good, as well as Momversation, and live my own damn life.
As an aside, and quite honestly also a reason I feel irked, BlogHer rejected my request to be added to their Blog Directory, based on non-consistent posting. They were nice about it and all, but just adds a layer to my Mafia theory.
On a last note, one unusual blog that always cheers me up, no matter what, is Heather Champ's Flickr photostream.
26 January 2009
Snowboarding
Back in my 20's, I was facinated by the X Games. Didn't matter if it was summer or winter. I would watch Street Luge (and did so in person once, actually, in front of SF's Cliffhouse!) with as much absorption as I watched Snocross (aka Snowmobile slalom).
My favorite, however, was watching All Things Snowboarding. I was an avid skier from ages 8-13 and wanted to pick it back up again as an adult... until snowboarding came into the picture. Then I wanted to be a snowboarder! A great one! And I would be so good at it, too! Because I also skateboarded as a kid, and had great balance!
Surely you're getting the picture here. I was an obsessed person. And given the culture on the slopes (from what I heard, anyhow, since I never actually went to the slopes at that time), skiing was out out out. Snowboarding was in and cool and would replace skiing because skiing was for old fogies.
As with many things in my 20's, my fantasy about becoming a snowboarder never materialized into reality. I blamed it on fat. After a couple hours on the slopes as a kid, I could barely pick myself up after falling because of exhaustion... how in heck was I going to pick myself up as a fat frequently-falling adult with both my feet strapped to one piece of board? And, there literally were no snowboarding (or skiing) clothes for fat people in the late 90's. Hell, when I was a kid my mom fashioned black wool pants used for adults in my dad's marching band into ski pants for me. That's how bad of an outlook it was for fat people of all ages who wanted to engage in winter sports. Thank goodness for Junonia now, for offering clothing for all types of sports to fat women.
Junonia, actually, is where Honey Bunny purchased me my Xmas present the first year we were together: a two-piece alpine jacket and black alpine pants. He took me at face value that I wanted to snowboard, god love him. Have I used them yet? No. Have I even tried them on since he gave them to me?? No. I'm still fearful of how fat will hold me back in the snowboarding venue. However... although I'm bigger than I was in my 20's, I'm much stronger now (thanks to personal training). Honey Bunny also - thankfully - believes only in private lessons. And of course, I'm much more enlightened now about how fat should never hold anyone back from what they want to do. So, what's the hold up?
This past weekend, we went up to the mountains to visit some of HB's family. While packing, he asked me - as he always does when we go to the snow - if I was going to pack my alpine clothing in case I wanted to snowboard while he went skiing. Gulp. I had a major internal struggle about what to do. Should I face down my demons and just do it??
It occured to me that, seeing as skiing is in vogue once again (yes, groan), I could just ski instead. It wouldn't be as big of a learning curve. Probably less bruising. A little safer emotionally and physically. Hmmm. This went on in my head for about 20 minutes until HB walked in the room and said, "Nevermind, I just looked at the resort's website... the snow sucks right now." Phew!
I kept thinking, though, and I realized that in my 20's I viewed snowboarding much like I viewed skydiving. It was something I had to do before I turned 30 because that would make me cool and hardcore and young. 30 came and went without doing either, so I moved the goal to 40. Thankfully by the time I turned 32 I'd decided that wanting to skydive was ridiculous, as I would have such a panic reaction just thinking about skydiving, or watching other people's skydiving videos, that I could barely breathe. Snowboarding is far from skydiving in quality, I realize, but the energy behind both was similar.
Now on the other side of 35 -- I don't need to snowboard to be cool! I'll probably do it because it looks fun, and it's good for the soul to try new things. And in the end, I'll have to face down some demons to once again try skiing... so why not just go full-tilt and try snowboarding? Why not try both skiing AND snowboarding? It will be tough no matter what, so just do it, girl!
On a last note, I must include this story that makes me laugh in retrospect. It was around the second Winter X Games I watched that a person from my school years placed in the top 5 in a snowboarding event. By "person", I mean Janelle, one of the neighborhood mean girls who made my life a living hell from ages 6 through 18. I remember jumping up off the couch and screaming (not in a good way) when I saw her name flash on the screen for her first run... and again when they interviewed her after her run... and again when I saw her name in the final results. People, I was spun on it. It was all I could talk about for at least a month, about how that bitch became a snowboarder in the X Games, and fuck her for stealing my dream. To top it off, I found an online interview of her in which she said her favorite foods were steamed vegetables and soft pretzles. My favorite foods at that time were nacho cheese sauce, nacho cheese Doritos and M&M's. Ahem. She said she had a great life and got to travel the world competing on her corporate sponsor's dime. I hated her even more because she looked uncharacteristically peaceful and sweet and like someone I would actually want to be friends with.
It took me awhile to come down from this. I was so incredibly pissed off that I didn't know what to do with myself. Eventually the memory faded and I went back to my normal life. I did think about it occasionally over the years. Now 10-ish years later, I have a good laugh over it. I was paralyzed by life at that time. Whereas I did not have the skills or resources to become an X Games competetion level snowboarder, I could have at least stepped a foot ON an actual snowboard and had some fun. Thank goodness for therapy and for a life that is (more or less!) unparalyzed now.
My favorite, however, was watching All Things Snowboarding. I was an avid skier from ages 8-13 and wanted to pick it back up again as an adult... until snowboarding came into the picture. Then I wanted to be a snowboarder! A great one! And I would be so good at it, too! Because I also skateboarded as a kid, and had great balance!
Surely you're getting the picture here. I was an obsessed person. And given the culture on the slopes (from what I heard, anyhow, since I never actually went to the slopes at that time), skiing was out out out. Snowboarding was in and cool and would replace skiing because skiing was for old fogies.
As with many things in my 20's, my fantasy about becoming a snowboarder never materialized into reality. I blamed it on fat. After a couple hours on the slopes as a kid, I could barely pick myself up after falling because of exhaustion... how in heck was I going to pick myself up as a fat frequently-falling adult with both my feet strapped to one piece of board? And, there literally were no snowboarding (or skiing) clothes for fat people in the late 90's. Hell, when I was a kid my mom fashioned black wool pants used for adults in my dad's marching band into ski pants for me. That's how bad of an outlook it was for fat people of all ages who wanted to engage in winter sports. Thank goodness for Junonia now, for offering clothing for all types of sports to fat women.
Junonia, actually, is where Honey Bunny purchased me my Xmas present the first year we were together: a two-piece alpine jacket and black alpine pants. He took me at face value that I wanted to snowboard, god love him. Have I used them yet? No. Have I even tried them on since he gave them to me?? No. I'm still fearful of how fat will hold me back in the snowboarding venue. However... although I'm bigger than I was in my 20's, I'm much stronger now (thanks to personal training). Honey Bunny also - thankfully - believes only in private lessons. And of course, I'm much more enlightened now about how fat should never hold anyone back from what they want to do. So, what's the hold up?
This past weekend, we went up to the mountains to visit some of HB's family. While packing, he asked me - as he always does when we go to the snow - if I was going to pack my alpine clothing in case I wanted to snowboard while he went skiing. Gulp. I had a major internal struggle about what to do. Should I face down my demons and just do it??
It occured to me that, seeing as skiing is in vogue once again (yes, groan), I could just ski instead. It wouldn't be as big of a learning curve. Probably less bruising. A little safer emotionally and physically. Hmmm. This went on in my head for about 20 minutes until HB walked in the room and said, "Nevermind, I just looked at the resort's website... the snow sucks right now." Phew!
I kept thinking, though, and I realized that in my 20's I viewed snowboarding much like I viewed skydiving. It was something I had to do before I turned 30 because that would make me cool and hardcore and young. 30 came and went without doing either, so I moved the goal to 40. Thankfully by the time I turned 32 I'd decided that wanting to skydive was ridiculous, as I would have such a panic reaction just thinking about skydiving, or watching other people's skydiving videos, that I could barely breathe. Snowboarding is far from skydiving in quality, I realize, but the energy behind both was similar.
Now on the other side of 35 -- I don't need to snowboard to be cool! I'll probably do it because it looks fun, and it's good for the soul to try new things. And in the end, I'll have to face down some demons to once again try skiing... so why not just go full-tilt and try snowboarding? Why not try both skiing AND snowboarding? It will be tough no matter what, so just do it, girl!
On a last note, I must include this story that makes me laugh in retrospect. It was around the second Winter X Games I watched that a person from my school years placed in the top 5 in a snowboarding event. By "person", I mean Janelle, one of the neighborhood mean girls who made my life a living hell from ages 6 through 18. I remember jumping up off the couch and screaming (not in a good way) when I saw her name flash on the screen for her first run... and again when they interviewed her after her run... and again when I saw her name in the final results. People, I was spun on it. It was all I could talk about for at least a month, about how that bitch became a snowboarder in the X Games, and fuck her for stealing my dream. To top it off, I found an online interview of her in which she said her favorite foods were steamed vegetables and soft pretzles. My favorite foods at that time were nacho cheese sauce, nacho cheese Doritos and M&M's. Ahem. She said she had a great life and got to travel the world competing on her corporate sponsor's dime. I hated her even more because she looked uncharacteristically peaceful and sweet and like someone I would actually want to be friends with.
It took me awhile to come down from this. I was so incredibly pissed off that I didn't know what to do with myself. Eventually the memory faded and I went back to my normal life. I did think about it occasionally over the years. Now 10-ish years later, I have a good laugh over it. I was paralyzed by life at that time. Whereas I did not have the skills or resources to become an X Games competetion level snowboarder, I could have at least stepped a foot ON an actual snowboard and had some fun. Thank goodness for therapy and for a life that is (more or less!) unparalyzed now.
03 January 2009
Hello, 2009!
As always, sorry for not posting in timely fashion, and I also apologize for a general lack of posting in 2008. 2008 is a year I'll never forget, and, quite honestly, it can kiss my ass goodbye.
The Wedding, getting married, being married, are all great things about 2008. So was seeing a lot of friends who live elsewhere because of (sometimes multiple) wedding festivities. Honey Bunny got his industry award, which was very awesome. Barack Obama was elected; that is off the charts wonderful. And... work didn't suck as badly? "Mamma Mia!" saved my Christmas and "Yes Man" saved my state of mind? YES, I'm reaching.
Unfortunately, for the majority of the year I dealt with panic attacks, insomnia and anxiety, and narrowly avoided a slew of anxiety-associated health problems. Most profoundly of all, I/we had to say goodbye to my best feline friend of 12 years just after Thanksgiving. We had had a major health scare with her in June but she emerged kitten-like. Shortly after my last post, she was diagnosed with the most fatal of liver cancers. It was one of the most devastating things I've ever had to endure, to witness her life come to an end and to say goodbye.
2008 was the year I should have made official Zaftig Chick t-shirts with the slogan, "What I could never have predicted was..." As in:
...that I'd develop major anxiety over planning a wedding.
...that I'd become mostly ready to become a parent.
...that I'd partially come to terms with spirituality.
...that I'd put my beautiful kitty to rest and be holding her as she exited this lifetime.
There are, of course, numerous other things I could add, mostly comprised of the daily minutia of life ("...that I'd become an instant messaging fanatic").
Anyhow, I'm trying to maintain a better attitude about 2009. I have a close friend who is in a 12-step program who routinely challenges me when I start feeling shitty about myself and life. She always asks me what my part in it is (whatever "it" may be), and then she talks to me about gratitude. I'm a cynical person, and it's not easy to take. But, she's right. If there is anything Kitty's passing taught me loud and clear, it's that life is fleeting. The old cliche comes to mind that you can either choose to see every moment in life/with someone you love/etc as a gift, or you can choose to watch it go by and be victimized by your losses. Believe me, when the grieving has more or less passed, I'm going to renew my effort to choose the former more than choosing the latter.
On that note, here's a good thing that has happened in the few short days since 2009 started. I got a tattoo today! Getting one has been a goal for about 15 years but I was always crippled by fear and stalemated by indecision about image and location on the body. When Kitty passed away, I knew immediately what my tattoo would be. A heart shape constructed of fur - in her coat colors and texture - with her first initial in cursive font located on the inside of the heart.
Of course it hurt... but nowhere near as badly as losing a best friend. I reminded myself of that many times in the couple hours it took.
For anyone who is considering a tattoo but is scared of it, I'll tell you this. I have gotten feedback from many tattooed friends over the years and the general consensus was absolutely correct: it feels like someone dragging their long-ass fingernails over your fresh, lobster-red, swollen sunburn. The thing I didn't capture from friends was that the pain spectrum is really wide.
For instance, when my artist put down the first line I was expecting it to feel so ouchy that I would howl in pain. I was gripping the table in anticipation. What it actually felt like was someone writing on me really hard with a Bic pen. Uncomfortable but nowhere near unbearable. I let go of the table and yelled out, "Oh my god, that hurts so much less than I thought it would!"
That lasted until she started doing long, curving, arching lines. Quite honestly, on certain portions of the design it felt like she was using a scalpel to draw. That was more on the unbearable end of the spectrum. Thank goodness she had to keep stopping to dip the needle into ink. The micro-breaks make it tolerable.
She also mentioned before doing the tattoo, and was quite right, that the location I'd chosen - my lower back/upper butt, north of the butt crack and off to one side - is known for discomfort. The right side of the heart shape was quite painful, whereas the left side was almost nothing. Seriously. Like, it felt like she was lightly drawing on me with a dull pencil. Why this is, I don't know. She said that that's just how it is with the body. For another person, the left could be painful while the right was nothing, or the whole thing could have been nothing, and so on and so forth.
The most common thing I'd heard about tattooing is that the outline, which uses only one needle, hurts quite a bit more than shading, in which my artist used a nine-needle machine. I would say that's partially true. The outline can be really intense but chances are the artist is only going over the area once or twice with the needle. It's intense for short bursts of time and when it's done, it's done.
When my artist started shading, it was a welcome change from the outline. It does hurt a lot less for awhile. However, at least on my design, she went over various areas several times and it started to really feel like I had a shitty sunburn that someone kept taunting over and over again... if "taunting" is having a cat knead your seriously inflamed skin with her freshly sharpened nails. Ouch! I had to take a break about 3/4 into shading. Breaks are good. There's no way I could have finished without it.
Long story short, it's over before you know it and you have art on your body and that's really awesome. I'm so glad that in 2009 I am able to mark off one of my life goals, and that it's not just a design that was arbitrarily chosen. No, it ain't the Egyptian symbol of death or anything like that, but it's deep to me. Here's hoping that I can make strides to mark another thing, or things, off my life goals list.
Happy new year!
The Wedding, getting married, being married, are all great things about 2008. So was seeing a lot of friends who live elsewhere because of (sometimes multiple) wedding festivities. Honey Bunny got his industry award, which was very awesome. Barack Obama was elected; that is off the charts wonderful. And... work didn't suck as badly? "Mamma Mia!" saved my Christmas and "Yes Man" saved my state of mind? YES, I'm reaching.
Unfortunately, for the majority of the year I dealt with panic attacks, insomnia and anxiety, and narrowly avoided a slew of anxiety-associated health problems. Most profoundly of all, I/we had to say goodbye to my best feline friend of 12 years just after Thanksgiving. We had had a major health scare with her in June but she emerged kitten-like. Shortly after my last post, she was diagnosed with the most fatal of liver cancers. It was one of the most devastating things I've ever had to endure, to witness her life come to an end and to say goodbye.
2008 was the year I should have made official Zaftig Chick t-shirts with the slogan, "What I could never have predicted was..." As in:
...that I'd develop major anxiety over planning a wedding.
...that I'd become mostly ready to become a parent.
...that I'd partially come to terms with spirituality.
...that I'd put my beautiful kitty to rest and be holding her as she exited this lifetime.
There are, of course, numerous other things I could add, mostly comprised of the daily minutia of life ("...that I'd become an instant messaging fanatic").
Anyhow, I'm trying to maintain a better attitude about 2009. I have a close friend who is in a 12-step program who routinely challenges me when I start feeling shitty about myself and life. She always asks me what my part in it is (whatever "it" may be), and then she talks to me about gratitude. I'm a cynical person, and it's not easy to take. But, she's right. If there is anything Kitty's passing taught me loud and clear, it's that life is fleeting. The old cliche comes to mind that you can either choose to see every moment in life/with someone you love/etc as a gift, or you can choose to watch it go by and be victimized by your losses. Believe me, when the grieving has more or less passed, I'm going to renew my effort to choose the former more than choosing the latter.
On that note, here's a good thing that has happened in the few short days since 2009 started. I got a tattoo today! Getting one has been a goal for about 15 years but I was always crippled by fear and stalemated by indecision about image and location on the body. When Kitty passed away, I knew immediately what my tattoo would be. A heart shape constructed of fur - in her coat colors and texture - with her first initial in cursive font located on the inside of the heart.
Of course it hurt... but nowhere near as badly as losing a best friend. I reminded myself of that many times in the couple hours it took.
For anyone who is considering a tattoo but is scared of it, I'll tell you this. I have gotten feedback from many tattooed friends over the years and the general consensus was absolutely correct: it feels like someone dragging their long-ass fingernails over your fresh, lobster-red, swollen sunburn. The thing I didn't capture from friends was that the pain spectrum is really wide.
For instance, when my artist put down the first line I was expecting it to feel so ouchy that I would howl in pain. I was gripping the table in anticipation. What it actually felt like was someone writing on me really hard with a Bic pen. Uncomfortable but nowhere near unbearable. I let go of the table and yelled out, "Oh my god, that hurts so much less than I thought it would!"
That lasted until she started doing long, curving, arching lines. Quite honestly, on certain portions of the design it felt like she was using a scalpel to draw. That was more on the unbearable end of the spectrum. Thank goodness she had to keep stopping to dip the needle into ink. The micro-breaks make it tolerable.
She also mentioned before doing the tattoo, and was quite right, that the location I'd chosen - my lower back/upper butt, north of the butt crack and off to one side - is known for discomfort. The right side of the heart shape was quite painful, whereas the left side was almost nothing. Seriously. Like, it felt like she was lightly drawing on me with a dull pencil. Why this is, I don't know. She said that that's just how it is with the body. For another person, the left could be painful while the right was nothing, or the whole thing could have been nothing, and so on and so forth.
The most common thing I'd heard about tattooing is that the outline, which uses only one needle, hurts quite a bit more than shading, in which my artist used a nine-needle machine. I would say that's partially true. The outline can be really intense but chances are the artist is only going over the area once or twice with the needle. It's intense for short bursts of time and when it's done, it's done.
When my artist started shading, it was a welcome change from the outline. It does hurt a lot less for awhile. However, at least on my design, she went over various areas several times and it started to really feel like I had a shitty sunburn that someone kept taunting over and over again... if "taunting" is having a cat knead your seriously inflamed skin with her freshly sharpened nails. Ouch! I had to take a break about 3/4 into shading. Breaks are good. There's no way I could have finished without it.
Long story short, it's over before you know it and you have art on your body and that's really awesome. I'm so glad that in 2009 I am able to mark off one of my life goals, and that it's not just a design that was arbitrarily chosen. No, it ain't the Egyptian symbol of death or anything like that, but it's deep to me. Here's hoping that I can make strides to mark another thing, or things, off my life goals list.
Happy new year!
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