Zaftig Chick's Guide to (her own) Fat Life

UGH!

2011-11-10T14:37:00.000-08:00

Shit like this makes my blood boil, and it's not just because I'm almost nine months pregnant.

5 Bizarre Weight Loss Tricks That Work

As I stated in the comments section, this is a heap of crap touting disordered eating. I hate Shine in general but somehow this seems like a new (even more manipulative) low for them.

Irony II: Electric Boogaloo

2011-05-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

Here's some irony: the day after I wrote the last posting I found out I was pregnant. Zing! It's been a little crazy up in here, in this head, since then.

Honey Bunny and I have been "trying" since January 2009 to have a kid. I think I have to somewhat credit losing weight and getting more fit for becoming pregnant. I did make a couple other life changes in the same basic span of time that I decided to lose weight and I'm sure those had something to do with it, too. I'm saying all this with much hesitation because I don't want to come off as a dieting apologist.

I've had the requisite food aversion and nausea like most women get and it's taught me a few things. Namely, that some of the food I was eating to lose weight doesn't really deserve the title of "food". That was a hard one to swallow (har har!) after so many devoted months of thinking what I was doing was right and sound. After the baby is hatched and I'm ready to again lose some weight, I'll have to remember that.

Also, did you know that physical exertion can cause nausea if you're prone to it? I'm not a barfer under normal circumstances so I didn't know. All the exercise habits I had established are out the window. I would sooner chew my own arm off than go to personal training right now. In fact, I made the decision to put PT on the shelf until all is said and done. It makes no sense to spend money on working out hard because, well, I can't work out hard at the present time. Bah.

Overall being pregnant has put a giant kink in my body image that I didn't quite expect. I was more focused on (obsessed with?) losing weight than I gave myself credit for, as it felt like ceasing equaled death. My doctor said I could continue to track my food intake and weight, and that she wanted me for sure to continue exercising, but that I shouldn't be trying to lose weight at this time. It took me all of a day to stop consistently tracking my food, and in a month's time I've fallen completely off the wagon. I still do track my weight every other day for peace of mind and Dr. reporting purposes. Like I said above, exercising has slowed to a crawl. All of it makes me feel like a big, fat failure. Logically I know that it's not a failure but instead an adjustment to a huge life change in progress. Some charitable folks have even said it's important self care to have stepped away from the focus of losing weight. Emotionally, however, I feel like I'm letting myself down.

Not helping the cause is pressure from a couple of sources in my life about needing to exercise or else. The last time I went to visit my doctor, who I love in all ways but this, she read me about needing to exercise in order to have a healthy pregnancy. On one hand, I buy it hook, line and sinker. I've heard over and over how staying active really does help your body cope with added weight and especially with the act of child birth. Who doesn't want that? On the other hand, I can't help but feel there was bias present in her lecture. Women of all shapes and sizes and cultures have healthy babies every day regardless of how much they exercised during their pregnancies. It's not the only factor in a healthy pregnancy, and I have to wonder if my doctor was stressing the importance of it because I'm fat. If it was my vitals or blood test results that added fuel to the fire, or was the fuel to begin with, I wish she would have shared that information.

I really thought I was going to be immune to all the body image stuff as it relates to pregnancy. I always hated hearing from otherwise thin women "how fat they are" when they're in actuality eight months pregnant. Now I somewhat get it. The changes that happen to your body feel extreme, especially when you've worked to make your body be a certain way. Practically every single day my husband tells me how proud he is to see my body changing because I'm carrying our baby and I have to take a really, really deep breath and try not to FREAK THE FUCK OUT. And, I can't even accept that that's where my head is at right now. I feel shame because I "should" be taking it all in stride, right? I "should" be enjoying this temporary rite-of-passage change, right?

One of the first things I jumped to for solace when I realized everything had to change (the food, the exercise, the body) was the idea of taking the baby weight off afterwards. I had visions of walking the baby around briskly in a stroller or pack every day, getting my exercise. I had visions of once again working out hard in personal training. I had visions of my body changing shape, being even 'better' than it was before I got pregnant. I've thankfully chilled out on this point over the past month, especially as I've told this fantasy to friends who are mothers and they just laugh. "There's really not a lot of time to do anything other than care for your baby in the first couple months, so you'll have to see if that's viable for you." Oh.

I'm happy to be carrying and having a child, but it's a complicated matter for the body (and mind) on a number of levels! If you care to follow me at my other blog, In the Company of Baby, I'll mostly be posting over there for the next nine or so months.

Irony?

2011-04-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Upon finishing the last of many, many pieces of birthday cake I've enjoyed over the past week, I realized something. I love, enjoy and appreciate food even more now that I'm moderating my intake of it. Then I thought, "Huh, that's ironic," but now I'm wondering if it is. I mean, it IS ironic given how very much we demonize food and worship dieting in our culture. (Dieting often seems like the most direct route to hating food.) On the other hand, to say it's normal is to play into the notion that dieting gives you total clarity about food and eating. (The truth is that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.)

Ah, food and fat politics... it's the metaphorical worm eating it's tail, no pun or irony intended.

To call what I'm doing "dieting" is a gross overstatement, thankfully. This week I elected to chow the fuck down for my birthday, and I have some added poundage to show for it. It didn't upset me to see the number on the scale go up and up and up a little bit each day because eating a boatload of super yummy Indian food on my birthday and then a big plateful of Mexican cheesiness and naughty ballpark food over the weekend, not to mention plus or minus seven pieces of various birthday cakeage in seven days time, gave me profound joy. I can also trust that the number will go back down once I reinstate moderation and put in a little effort. No need to panic or start hating myself because I indulged and was able to see a direct consequence to my weight because of it. (FYI, there have been plenty of times over the past five months when I have panicked about the number on the scale. The benefit of experience and perspective is, as always, most beneficial.)

Speaking of numbers on a scale, when I returned from vacation at my parents house (as mentioned in the previous post) I was finally able to weigh in and found myself almost 23 lbs down from my starting point last November. Shiver me timbers, it freaked me out and blew my mind. I actually ended up having an anxiety attack partially because of it. Too much change at once doesn't work well for me, and I will always worry that the change isn't sustainable if it happens quickly.

On a related note, up until that point I didn't have too much awareness of how differently my clothes were fitting. It wasn't a day later that I put a favorite shirt on, looked in the mirror and thought, "WHAT is the deal with this shirt?" It was like the universe turned upside down and I had no idea what I was even looking at. As I have so many times in the past I wanted to blame it on the laundry process, that surely something somewhere got fucked up and my shirt was washed in the wrong temperature or was put in the dryer when it's meant to be line dried, so on and so forth. But, no. It's just too big on my body now to be flattering in any way. This pisses me off on a number of levels, the least of which is the amount of dough I dropped on that particular shirt, thinking it would be a solid investment and would reside in my closet for many years looking spiffy and cute. Moreso it irks me because I have to work (play) hard to even find things that I think look spiffy and cute on me, and, well, another one bites the dust.

And another one gone,
And another one gone,
Another one bites the dust!

I never in a million years thought I'd be complaining about my clothes being too loose or having to go shopping for stuff in a smaller size. The thing is, I don't want to be blowing money on interim sizes if I keep losing weight so I'm holding out until it's no longer fathomable for me to wear what I currently have in my closet. Also, the vain part of me wants to really and truly experience what it's like to walk into a clothing store and get the smaller size. Right now I'm kinda-sorta-mostly into a size smaller and it's irksome to try to fit things correctly. I have a feeling, however, that I'll always walk into a store and struggle to fit into clothes correctly, whether they be too big or too small. Given that part of the reason I want to lose weight is have greater access to cute clothing, that is irony on a stick.

Crabalicious

2011-03-22T01:34:00.000-07:00

There's no denying I'm having a full-on crabby attack this evening. It's been an accumulation over the last few days from being out of my element, feeling misunderstood and trying to regulate my eating and exercise in an environment where it's difficult to keep my head above water. Visiting family and being "home" in Southern California for an extended period of time... it's not for the faint of heart.

I remember the moment I knew I was fat, or more precisely, that fat was a Problem. I was all of 10 years old and the biggest fad of them all was Jordache jeans. The popular chicks at school had 'em and there were endless ads in my sisters' Sixteen magazines for 'em. Thus, I WANTED 'EM. NOW. I thought the biggest hurdle would be talking my parents into spending the money on them, my parents being, respectively, a SAHM and a music teacher with a penchant for being hella cheap no matter what the annual household income ever was or is. But, nope. The true problem was that they didn't make Jordache jeans in my size. That was a really shitty day at the mall in 1982, let me tell you. There was no turning back. (And here we sit today... me writing and you reading about big, fat issues.)

You know those times when you learn about something that apparently everyone else has been talking about rabidly, and then all of a sudden that thing is everywhere you turn? Just happened to me a couple days ago at Starbucks in Kettleman City off I-5... Cake Pops. (Who the fuck knew about cake pops and mini desserts? Not me!) That day and the ensuing ones in 1982, I learned that you need and want to be thin - for myriad reasons other than just impressing your peers with Jordache ownership - and everywhere you turn that message is up in your grill.

Aside from the proliferation of french manicures, orange spray tans, Uggs, strip malls and pinner burritos, this is my main problem with Southern California. The second my ass hits the 210 from the 5, every other billboard you see touts the Lap Band or some other crazy weight loss surgery. Not that people in Nor Cal are necessarily any more gracious about fat folk but at least there I don't get packs of frat boys overtly mocking my appearance and size. The worst part of it for me is the irony of it all. People drive everywhere here, you can't fling a tennis ball without hitting a fast food restaurant and damned if I've seen anyone exercising in the several parks I've been to over the past few days. Bah!

On Sunday morning I was reading the Press Enterprise over my breakfast and came across this article. It's remarkably restrained and objective for such a conservative newspaper and one residing in So Cal, so I'll give it props for that. Otherwise, I'd like to slap everyone interviewed within.

1) Oh, you won a lame "Biggest Loser" knock-off contest by losing 68 pounds in 16 weeks, which averages out to approximately 1.5 lbs lost per day, and then accidentally gained all the weight back after the contest? Wow, that is SO shocking. Thanks for giving the general public more fodder for the fat stereotype fire, dude!

2) As for the Beaver Medical Clinic, they can go fuck themselves and their stupid, manipulative contest to engage desperate people wanting quick weight loss and free money. When businesses and "free money" are involved, don't fool yourself... it always comes down to gaining more customers.

3) And yes, let us not forget the "rising cost of obesity". How about all the supposedly well meaning health professionals and researchers, lobbyists and insurance companies (and hey, Michelle Obama even) target patients for the rising cost of treating their cancer and see how far they get before they offend the shit out of pretty much everyone. Obesity is an umbrella term encompassing the potential for a set of diseases. Not everyone who's fat - oh, excuse me, OBESE - has high blood pressure and high cholestorol and is one cheese burger away from dying of a heart attack. Thin people sometimes have just as many genetic, habitual and/or environmental risk factors, and they don't have the pleasure of being called "obese" because their BMI is under 25.

The rising cost thing is what wrankles me the most when I hear about the epidemic and problem of obesity. No lie, fat people DO need to exercise more or start exercising to begin with, and/or they do need to make better choices about types of food and portion size. Most of all, fat folk need to be aware of their own risk factors, whatever they may be and try to offset those factors if they can and want to. After that, I'm not sure that us fat people bear any more responsibility than anyone else to make sure we're not burdening the collective kitty, or our employers or insurance companies with our health care costs. It always comes down to money in a capitalist system. I'm not a person... I'm a goddamn potential waste of dollars to those in power and those who hold the purse strings. That's what really is cared about in this scenario and to quote one of my fine coworkers: it pisses the shit out of me.

When it comes down to it, we all are humans. We're faulty and foolish. We court death and we cheat death every single day. We love some and we hate others. Sometimes we condone unnatural behaviors while condemning natural ones. We're breathing, walking ironies most of the time as much as we don't want to be. It's just how life is, I suppose.

As for myself, I'm really struggling with my weight loss attempt at present. I was lamenting to Honey Bunny the other day that, "I'm stuck at only 15 lbs lost." He replied, "Don't you mean to say that you're proud of yourself for having lost 15 lbs, which is quite an accomplishment?" Nothing like a little perspective; I love that man.

I'm in So Cal for a week with my family, with the associated many, many foodly temptations therein, and without a scale in which to check myself daily. I'm good with 15 lbs as long as I maintain it because, at the risk of sounding like a fat hating clone, there is nothing worse in weight loss than having to lose the same 5 lbs over and over and over again. For me it's more like the same 3-4 lbs but still. It's freakin' irritating and frustrating as sin to have come this far and to feel like I'm barely maintaining not only my weight but the headspace that got me here to begin with.

Let me just get this last thing off my chest, like so many other things. Earlier this evening I rooted around in both bathrooms and all four bedrooms of this house I grew up in for a scale, like a junkie looking for a hit of heroin. Somehow, some way, I need to be checked - and I'm not talking about the act of checking my weight on a scale. Trusting that I'm going to do that for myself (ie. the only person that can rightfully, genuinely and effectively check me) in due time, at the right time, scares the crap out of me. It will happen and I will get there, though. Patience.

Braggadocia: The Good, the Bad and the Supposedly Ugly

2011-02-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

Forgive me, readers, for at this moment I am highly annoyed with a Friend who has lost more than half of her starting weight over the past year and loves to talk about it on Facebook. I've been irritated with her for the past six months actually, as she's started posting about it more and more, culminating in today's crowning (er, crowing) glory about how great her ass looks in the smallest pant size she's ever bought. In theory, at least, I want to be happy for this friend for what seems to have been a big accomplishment in her life, so on and so forth. In reality, I get sozzled every single time I read her posts.

For starters, the last time I checked it was considered a bit gauche to brag. Saying you're proud of yourself for losing weight is one thing and saying how awesome your tush looks in the wee pants you just bought is quite another.

As I'm wont to do, I soul-searched a little about why else this friend's very public updates about her weight loss bug me. As someone who is also striving to lose weight, and purposefully doing so very quietly, it makes me uncomfortable. Moreso, as someone who believes in fat acceptance it pisses me off. When formerly-fat folks are so completely happy about not being "fat" anymore it just feeds into our culture's infinite fat-hating loop.

Let me just state again, this time in much more vague terms, that being happy that you met your goal of losing X amount of pounds is one thing while being happy that you're no longer "fat" - and therefore ugly, not worthy of true love, worthless and all the other things the fat-hating loop tells us is wrong about being fat - is quite another.

(Yes, I know that it didn't sound like my Friend stated or insinuated any of this in her post... it is my personal experiences with her that lay the foundation for this rant.)

This, of course, is a battle for me that will never be won. I can wish and pray and hope and blog and talk all I want about the fat-hating loop needing to change or stop, but it won't. It's infinite and it's powerful. It might even have had roots in the well-meaning at some point, which is a truth and fact that even I, as a fat person, acknowledge: that we need to strive for overall health, both physical or mental.

Sidenote: if you hate yourself for the way you look, your mental health probably needs to be looked at (eg. by a therapist). It's maybe normal, or at least normative in this culture, especially for women, to hate the way you look sometimes or for certain periods of your life... but to hate yourself for what you are? Or in the case of those who have lost weight - hate yourself for what you were? It might be normal but in my opinion, no way to live your life.

**********
So, um, speaking of bragging. As of today, I'm down 13 lbs from my mid-November start. It's an odd number in that I honestly never thought I'd make it past the original goal of ten. It's been fucking with my head a little, to be honest. I put on my jeans every morning and definitely notice that they are looser (which is nice because at the height of my weight it was Camel Toe City) but they are not so loose as to necessitate buying a size smaller. That will be a weird day when it comes, trust. This was completely the point of doing slow and quiet loss, though - that my mind needs time to catch up with body reality. I don't do change and transition easily and it's often crossed my mind that I'm even losing TOO fast. My goal was 1/2 lb a week and I'm averaging at just over a pound a week. However, I hold steadfastly to my thought about this entire process: it has to be doable in the moment and sustainable for the long term. I think I'm good to go.

Speaking of doable and sustainable -- can I just tell you how much glee I feel when I hear dieters around me say, "I really shouldn't" to a tasty treat that has been proferred? I want to shout outloud, "Well, I WILL!" As I'm dedicated to being quiet and self-oriented with this process, I don't actually shout that, but I do take said tasty treat and put it in my piehole. "Dieting" isn't worth not having treats, in my opinion. I know I'm a broken record on this one so I'll leave it at that.

Or not. Earlier today, the guy who resides a few cubes down - He Who Is On A Perpetual Diet - ate his requisite microwaved Lean Cuisine for lunch and then complained to his cube mate that, "that sure was not a lot of food for 250 calories." Um, ya think? 250 calories is a pittance for lunch and god forbid he pick up a piece of fruit to supplement it but oh right, I forgot... fruit has carbs. It's exactly when I get a self-satisfied grin on my face and think, "Too bad for you, dude. For lunch I just had homemade mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans and tofu, the biggest and most gorgeous Cara Cara orange you've ever laid eyes on, AND I'mma have a chocolate soy pudding cup for an afternoon treat. Suck on those 550 calories."

Have I drank the weight loss Koolaid?

2010-12-20T17:04:00.000-08:00

This is the question I grapple with the most lately. I still have the same aversion to seeing Yahoo! News ("news") postings about The Biggest Loser and it's latest round of winners (er, losers?). Although, if I'm being honest, a perverse part of me always wants to look at the before and after pictures, much the same way I'll be at the salon and flip through the "I've Kept It Off For a Year!" issue of People while my hair cooks.

After reading the offending post in Two Whole Cakes last week, I felt so incensed by what felt like judgement towards those formerly/fat people who diet in the same way judgement gets thrown at fatties for NOT dieting. Must we turn on eachother? Can't we all just get along?

I was always one of those people who judged those who diet... maybe not in any sort of hard core outwardly-judgey way, but definitely in the sense that I'd think a disapproving "Mmmm-hmmm, whatever" in my head when dealing with the offending dieters talking about their diets. Balance in everything, though, and I still feel that big "whatever" when dieters can only seem to talk about how they're perpetually dieting and how many calories that chocolate bar has and how they "need to lose ten pounds in a week before the trip to France because all those women over there are so super-duper tiny!" (The latter is something directly from a coworker's mouth just last week, causing many internal eyerolls in the moment and, well, since.) The only difference now is that I can slightly relate to it. I'm 33 days into calorie-tracking and the novelty of how many calories refried beans have and how many calories circuit training burns has thankfully worn off a bit.

I woke up this morning and thought again about the TWC piece, albeit in much less indignant fashion. What struck me today was that the blogger even chose to rebuttal to that particular article. Granted, I only read what TWC quoted and most of the first page of the actual piece, but I kept thinking, Why would you choose to tear a person down who published something extremely vulnerable about having been fat? It just seems a bit cold.

Of course, I just read page two of the article and had to stop because the eye rolling began. It's not as pro-fat as I thought. I could see how it's perfect fodder for TWC, although I still don't agree with the snarky way TWC decided to rebut. Again: balance. I could see some good in the article, I could see some bad. In the end it's just one person's account of her own personal journey, along with her own associated opinions. None of us are perfect.

I keep wondering if there is an inevitable change in fat acceptance headspace when one who never-ever wanted to diet starts to lose weight, a la the author of the Alternet article. Is there a tipping point where you start to hate your own fat and want it off your body, which propels you to keep losing? I'll admit I've felt this several times over the course of the last month. Instead of pushing forward with trying to love my body as it is, I've felt irritated by it. This has had an especially unfortunate effect on my sex life, as now I don't feel like I can completely enjoy being naked. Again, instead of pushing through and either trying to love my body as it looks now, or at the very least completely ignore that I even have a body, I'm now hyper-conscious. That's not cool.

Here's the part where my scale tips back the other way, no pun intended. If at first I had to eschew the fat acceptance movement a bit to make some progress, and it had to eschew me for eschewing it, now I feel like I need to come back to my acceptance roots if I have any hope of making further progress without being miserable. I do need to remember to love my body for how it is today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on and so forth. I need to remember that fat - and diversity - is beautiful, not inherently dangerous. I need to remember that striving to lose weight is a choice that I've made, not a mandate I must follow. I need to remember those thoughts and several others, too, as this holiday season progresses.

Speaking of which, I'm going to my parents house to celebrate Christmas... the land of a million sweets and no exercise. I doubt there's a scale in their house, and NO I'm not going to bring mine with me. It'll be weird to take a break from climbing onto that scale every morning after my shower. It'll be weird to take a break from my careful breakfasts and lunches, and to have yet another balls-out holiday dinner. I'm holding out hope that I can sneak in just one workout in four days time and maybe even maintain the poundage I've lost. But, something tells me I'm gonna need the proverbial bigger boat. We'll see what happens.

It's official!

2010-12-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

I'm no longer a Fat Acceptance blogger! Nor should I really be part of any Fat Acceptance movement!

Phew, I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

It all started this morning. As I'm wont to do, I woke up from crazy dreams to sit bolt upright and have a major revelation about life. I've been struggling for awhile about a few "things", trying to make sense of them and come to a resolution sooner rather than later. Resolve can't be forced, though, at least not in my life, in the way I process information and issues. Well, BAM. Revelation. It always happens eventually.

I'm having an identity crisis. Of course. And on multiple fronts. In fact, all those "things" I'm dealing with... each is a piece of the identity I've constructed for myself over the past 10-20 years, all of which no longer really fit into the grand puzzle that is me. Fat Acceptance activism is one of those things, for sure. I started to realize and come to grips with that about a month ago when I posted about the formation of this blog. I just didn't quite realize how deeply I would end up feeling about it: deeply conflicted, deeply shameful and deeply lost.

I can't tell you how many times Yoga Trainer and I went around and around about my losing weight. Me saying that I felt conflicted since I consider myself part of the Fat Acceptance movement, and him replying that that shouldn't matter. When I made the decision to start calorie-tracking a month ago, I still felt very conflicted. Deeply conflicted, to be precise. However, unlike times previous, I didn't let it stop me from going forth.

Flash forward to today's lunch hour. I have a file of all the websites and blogs I like to peruse daily, one of which is Two Whole Cakes. (I've mentioned this blog in a few earlier posts as well.) I was bowled over by TWC when I first found the blog, because Lesley Kinsel writes about fat politics in the exact manner I always wanted to on this very blog. I found her funny and personal and super smart. I still do, sometimes, agree with her, like in this post about the latest fat girl on Glee. Mostly, though, her blog has started the slow, painful decent from my Lunchtime bookmarks list into the Recycle Bin. The post that killed me today was this one, specifically the section entitled "The confounding". As what I'm doing currently could be called "dieting", I'm apparently not allowed to bring it up in Fat Acceptance circles. Alrighty then, lesson learned! This blog can apparently no longer be about Fat Acceptance because the fact that I'm trying to change the shape of my own personal body, for my own deeply personal reasons, negates the fact that I still believe that there ought to be, in Lesley's own words, "noisy inquiry into what our culture tells us about bodies, ours and other people’s." The cruel irony here, of course, is that I just quoted Lesley in another previous posting, as part of the reason I decided to go ahead with losing some weight. In retrospect, I think I misunderstood what she was trying to say.

Sure, it's just one person's opinion but it's a loud one, one that I previously respected and one that likely speaks for many in the movement. This is honestly why I tend to eschew "movements" in general. (Except for bowel, hee.) In the end, though, please rest assured this isn't really about Lesley and what she says. Lesley's words were just the straw that broke this camel's back.

While I do feel the slightest bit bitter about all this, it's actually more of a relief than anything. Fat Acceptance, at least for the forseeable future, is greatly important to me. Not holding myself to a standard that was more of a moving target than anything else is the part that's the relief.

The previously mentioned deeply shamed and deeply lost parts of me are vastly more concerning. Expressing myself through words and pictures has always been part of my life, since the moment I could put crayon to paper and pencil to newsprint. This is not my only current blog and there have been many attempts at many blogs over the years, but this is the one that always had the finest point, has held the most weight and interest for me, and is the one that's stood the test of time. Nothing lasts forever, though, and I've been wondering if it's time to close up shop. But... it makes me feel like a failure to do so. When I started, I had pretty good readership from people I both knew and had never met. Just recently I looked on my Site Meter statistics and realized that no one really reads this anymore. I get maybe one hit a day, and the days where the hits spike are the days where I'm going back to edit previous posts. Not that readership should necessarily drive the blog, but why would I choose to keep blogging about something I'm no longer passionate about on a blog that no one reads? I might as well keep a journal. OR, just move it all over to my other blog. We'll see how it shakes out.

Eatin' it

2010-12-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

In previous postings I've mentioned that this isn't going to be a weight loss blog, that I wasn't going to be a slave to a food journal, that I didn't care how my favorite foods shake out nutritionally, and that I would never turn down dessert. I'm now in the position of eating my words on all of that.

While I'd want to slit my wrists if this really became a blog centered solely on weight loss, I will be talking a lot more about weight loss as it pertains to my own experience. I've felt very alone for the past couple weeks as I've done this food journaling and tried to modify my food intake, and the best thing for me to do right now is to get it all out in the open and talk about it.

In a lot of senses, I feel like I'm backwards from most women. You don't have to delve too far into the movie or book archives to find a storyline involving a woman who has been dieting her whole life only to discover during her mid-life crisis that she's been denying herself some major foodly pleasures. Eat Pray Love is a perfect example, as is the Sylvie Woodruff character in one of the best reads I've had lately, Jennifer Weiner's Fly Away Home. Who knows, of course, if the reality of most real women is like these characters. I do know a lot of real women who have been dieting for the great majority of their lives, and if not dieting at least watching their weight in some way. I guess you could say I've watched my weight over the years, just not quite in the same way. I've always wanted, and sometimes painfully wished, to be thinner but for various reasons I've never embarked on a major weight loss plan. With that has always come the smug satisfaction that at least I'm not constantly fixated on what goes into my mouth, and, at least I can eat what I want without guilt. Of course that's not entirely true because I definitely have gotten fixated on, say, that chocolate birthday cake sitting on the counter and I've definitely felt glimmers of guilt after eating three pieces in a row of said birthday cake. I'm just guessing that it's been nowhere near the degree of fixation and guilt experienced by a lot of folks who are dieting.

Now that I'm in a different place, I can see where the Dieters are coming from. Whereas previously I'd stare onto that gorgeous chocolate cake and dream about the moment it will first cross my lips, now I stare onto that gorgeous chocolate cake and ponder how many calories it has and what I'm not gonna be able to eat later to compensate for having it. Followed by the thought that maybe the cake isn't worth the calories in the end. Followed by the voice in my head mimicking Mr. Garrison that says "WHAT did you just say to me???" So, let me just say that this process has been really confusing and conflicting so far. Because, fuck... am I a Dieter now? Have I crossed some threshold and I'll never be able to go back to eating food normally and thoughtlessly again? It's all so weird!

I've found myself feeling like "that girl" recently. You see, "that girl" is a little game I play with myself in which I'm never the winner. When I was planning my wedding, I never wanted to be "that girl who was so obsessed with planning the details of her wedding that she became a bridezilla." Annnnd, there I found myself... pissy with the world because no one understood my stylistic vision, telling one of my Best Women that she needed to "shut the fuck up and listen to me for once" and being so anxious that I had insomnia for a year. When Honey Bunny and I stopped using birth control to see if we could get pregnant, I never wanted to be "that girl who becomes obsessed with trying to get pregnant." Annnd, here I was (am???)... trying to pretend not to be affected by getting my period month after month but secretly crying on the inside every time, ceasing all social drinking and smoking until it happens eventhough that didn't feel right, and yakking my therapist's ear off week after week about why it hadn't happened for us yet. Now I'm "that girl who's obsessed with counting calories and losing weight." I guess the point is that we will all be "that girl" at various times in our lives, even when we don't want to be. At any rate, it belies some naivety as to what others have gone through, that I haven't been able to relate until the present moment to someone I've judged for being "that girl". Walk a mile in someone else's shoes, right?

While the experience of being a bridezilla, being baby-crazed and being a Dieter are all legitimate, it does say something about taking the experience too far. How to not take it too far is beyond me. Taking it too far is my middle name in a lot of instances. And yet, I wonder if it's just part of the process to take it too far in the beginning. I'm really hoping so because, frankly, I can't live like this. I can't have my love of food taken away and trying to balance my favorite foods in X number of calories per day is making me tear my hair out.

Which bring me to my next point: treats. I went to dinner with a great friend in town for business and my husband the other night, to one of my fave places, Dosa. I enjoyed the food but was sitting there confounded as to how to enter it in MyPlate, and whether I should even track it at all. My friend joked, "just enter that you ate 500 calories and call it a day!" Being a closeted statistician, I felt like I needed to either enter nothing and just know that day's tracking was incomplete, or to try to enter something approximating the dinner. I ended up doing the latter and whoa... my calories for the day red-lined. The next thing I started worrying about was what my weight reading would be for the next day. I've been weighing myself daily and entering that in MyPlate as well. Being on the heels of Thanksgiving extended weekend didn't help a damn thing, as not only was there Thanksgiving dinner but also a big Mexican dinner with a different friend who was in town, and going to the movies twice, where this girl loves herself some buttered popcorn and the giant chocolate dipped rice crispy treat. And maybe there was some movie theater nacho cheese and chips somewhere in there, too. Ahem. Point being: when exactly do you call something a treat? How often is it okay to have a treat? And god damn it, why are so many of the things I love in treat territory??

I've been fortunate in not watching my weight thus far, truly. If I'd been watching my weight this entire time, this entire life, I wouldn't necessarily know the unimpaired depths of foodly pleasure that Tia Margarita has to offer, or Miette, or Vosges Haute Chocolat, or Bolani, or Cowgirl Creamery, and so on and so forth. I've tasted and enjoyed a lot of food, and I'm so glad I have. What I don't get at this point is how to have those things and still watch my weight. The simple answer is that I still get to have what I love, but just less of it. That's such an odd feeling to process. It's logical and it does make me feel better on some level. On other levels, it does nothing at all to appease me, and that's some deep shit that I'll go into another day (maybe).

There is a lot of food to love in this world. I walked through Whole Foods last night after eating humbly all day and then doing 60 minutes of hard circuit training before dinner. To say I was like a kid in a candy store is a gross understatement. To see the magnitude of tasty food they offer, treats or not, on every shelf, in every chafing dish, around every corner, was really overwhelming. For the first time it also felt overwrought and like the huge mixed message my previous therapist, Sharilyn, always said it was. We're supposed to watch what we eat and be thin and lose weight, and essentially we're not supposed to be food's bitch... but isn't that exactly what Whole Foods wants? If you've exercised control over food your whole life, whether by genuine means (ie. you've never been interested in being food's bitch) or by force (ie. Dieter or similar), maybe you can walk into that store and just be totally blase about all. If you're like me at present, if you're food's bitch, and especially if you're trying not to overindulge (or indulge at all) in your little treats, going into that store is like doing battle with the devil. And you want to know the most cruel irony of all? I've gone into Whole Foods at least once a week for the last year to pick up lunch and I've never been confronted like that. I've always known they have lots of tasty things but I've never been overwhelmed by it. I would just pick things to buy and leave. Blase.

Man, I could go on and on about all this stuff. I'm processing a lot of shit in my ol' noggin right now and always appreciate hearing what other people's experiences have been... if you have any wisdom to share, please comment.

Gobbling

2010-11-23T16:59:00.000-08:00

In my previous posting, I talked about how I'd taken some actions to lose a little weight. To clarify the "some" or "a little" in regards to losing... two dress sizes is what I told my trainer that I'm going to concentrate on, with no particular timeline in mind other than "I've heard that 2 lbs a month is ideal." On my other blog, 5 lbs is what I said I'm going to concentrate on through December. Clearly it's hard for me to commit to something concrete, consistent and doable. I've never liked to set goals because I'm a horrible project manager. I tend to get jacked up about doing a very exciting something! for a short burst of time and then I'm over it. Chalk it up to being an Aries, or to allegedly having ADD, or whatever you want. It's me, and it's a pain in the ass.

If you take the self awareness that I'm a not great at achieving long-term goals and multiply that by the anxiety that comes with possibly/maybe/I guess losing some of the weight I've gradually gained since I was eight years old (ie. changing part of my identity), what you end up with is someone paralyzed by the mere thought of embarking on a weight loss plan. Then add in the requisite eye rolling and wanting-to-vomit that comes with even THINKING the phrase "weight loss plan", and you've got a big, conflicted, paralyzed ball of sarcastic anxiety on your hands.

But... I think I've found a way.

During my convo with coworker Janie (also in previous posting), she told me she was using the MyPlate food journal tool on livestrong.com. Janie wasn't pushing the use of this tool; I looked it up on my own accord and have been using it for a week now. My dislike for Lance Armstrong is epic and I didn't want to have anything to do with his world, but I admit that I like it quite a bit so far. Not that I've been perusing the site too much... mostly I just login and track my stuff, but honestly livestrong.com offends me far less than, say, some of the shit published in the Glamour magazines I insist on purchasing and reading every few months. And hey, usage is free! I'd say it's pretty groovy as you put in what you've eaten and then you can view and track as many or as few statistics about your food intake as you'd like (for instance, if you want to look at nutrition in addition to - or instead of - calories). You can also input and track your exercise activities and it links back to your caloric intake, showing how many calories you theoretically burned against what your daily calorie intake is. Here's what that means after running it through the fatspeak translator:

I just did an hour of circuit training with minimal rest... shit howdy, that means I can eat 1200 more calories today and still stay within my calorie allocation! I can haz chocolate shake!!

Well, that's what MY fatspeak translator says anyhow.

But, seriously. One thing I've learned from using the MyPlate tool is that it can be a little surprising what you find out from accruing a few days of data. The first two days I logged my intake, I made no change to what I had been eating (to set a baseline) and was over my calorie allocation by 500 calories both days. On the third, and all subsequent days, I switched up to the healthful, planful eating I always say I'm going to do and I've been under each day by 200-500 calories. I honestly don't feel like I've made some big change to my eating. All I did was get humble about it. I was eating like a rock star previously, dreaming up the biggest, bestest meals I could purchase or make for breakfast, lunch and dinner, meanwhile popping Halloween candy into my piehole all workday long. The upside to that is that I was eating things I liked and even expanding my cooking repertoire in a few instances. The downside is that, in the end, it wasn't even about those things tasting good in my mouth. I was really bored at work, stymied with my social life, and looking for a project to occupy my mind. Of course, all I've done now is shift my focus from eating big to eating humbly... we'll see how that works out for me in the end. I'm the first to admit it's dangerous business and it could blow up in my face.

Which brings me to my next point: I totally see how disordered eating can start in a hot second. I've got one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, and I intuited that I needed to do that from the starting gate. There's no way I'm going to let myself get consumed by a calorie tracker to the point that I'm a slave to it and it alone, but I can see how that can happen so very easily for someone who wants weight loss more than I do. I can see how it can happen for someone who is already thin but doesn't know it, and who is consumed by losing more and more weight. Afterall, the part of Janie's story that broke my heart was her talking about her first Overeaters Anonymous meeting. She sat there as a 300 lb radical, sporting her non-profit look and no makeup, and heard the exact same things she was saying also coming out of the mouth of a blonde, uber fashionable woman who was all of a size two.

In lighter news on the food journaling front: some of the things you think have a zillion calories don't really. Some of the things you think are horrible for your cholestorol are not necessarily. Conversely, some of the things you think don't have a zillion calories totally do, and some of the things you think are harmless to your cholestorol are pretty naughty! Shocking on either end. I've never been one to look at the nutrition facts labels on food because, frankly, I never gave a shit. Now I have to look at them to see that I'm tracking what I eat roughly correctly within the tool, but in terms of what the numbers mean for that specific food - I still don't give a shit. I'm not gonna pick that battle with food overall, and especially not with foods that I love. I like what I like and I'm still going to eat what I want. Granted, it might be in a more humble proportion or farther and fewer between, but I'm still gonna eat it. I think I'd die if I couldn't eat what I wanted to and what I crave.

I keep flashing back to this scene at last year's Thanksgiving dinner. My niece, she of junk in the truck, decided during the summertime that it was time for her to lose weight. I saw her briefly late in the summer when she'd already lost about 15 lbs, and she was super psyched to keep losing. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, she had lost quite a bit more weight and was visibly pleased that she was receiving positive feedback from family members and told everyone she was gonna keep on going until she got to the size she wanted to be. As we sat down at the table, I looked around to everyone else's plate to compare portions to mine (I think a lot of people do this and just don't admit it!), and my eyes stopped on her plate. She had about half of what everyone else did on their plates. "Huh," I thought, "I guess that's what you have to do when you're losing weight like that." Later in the evening when it was dessert time, our hostess wheeled out the most amazing array of beautiful, hand-crafted desserts. I practically wanted to diddle myself under the table while taking it all in. Our hosts went person by person, doling out what each person wanted specifically, most people opting for a wanting a bit of everything. When it came time for my niece's plating, she said, "No thanks, I'm can't really eat dessert anymore." I wanted to ask her how long she'd been taking the crazy pills. How could anyone turn down dessert? And, permanently?? I felt a little heartbroken for her.

As it's a taboo subject for most folks, I decided not to pepper her with the million questions floating through my head, even if we'd had a quiet moment. The thing I wanted to know most was, Did she miss it? Did she want dessert eventhough she felt compelled to turn it down? Of course, this belies my personal bias towards dessert (and also flies in the face of not judging others for what they want to do with their bodies, but hey, I'm not perfect). Maybe she's not a dessert person, and if so, lucky for her! I recalled this scene with Honey Bunny last night and he nodded and said he remembered. I told him, "Honey, it doesn't matter where I'm going with this. I'll never turn down dessert*." He said, "Good, I'm glad."

Happy Thanksgiving! Eat well and don't turn down dessert if you don't want to.

* Actually, I'd turn it down if the only thing available was pumpkin pie. Yuck!

The path

2010-11-23T16:09:00.000-08:00

For the past 10+ years, I've had a hard time figuring out if I want to stay at my current weight/not worry about changing anything, or to try and lose some weight. This is mostly in light of my discovery of the Fat Acceptance movement back in the late 90's, and especially after having started this blog to be part of it. Before my discovery of the movement, I was swept up in the usual hysteria about having to lose weight and become a mainstream size, no questions asked. Right before I started this blog, my sister passed away from a massive heart attack related to diabetes and heart disease. My sister's death shocked and changed my world completely, of course, for many reasons. It also put a new spin on the question of whether to lose weight or not.

My sister, let's call her Cowgirl Alice, was always zaftig as were my other sister and I. When I was growing up, I never thought of Alice as different than myself in terms of weight or eating. She was, however and unfortunately, plagued by health problems - and weird ones at that - from the very start of her life. I suppose it stands to reason (in some fucked up universe) that she ended up with diabetes and severe hypothyroidism by my current age while my blood continues to test fine on at least an annual basis. Before her death, I didn't really think about health too much... losing weight was more a means to fit into Jordache jeans (age 10) or land the husband of my choosing (age 30). Since her death I'm, perhaps rightfully, a little paranoid. I get an annual physical with comprehensive bloodwork every year, and I have no qualms with asking the doctor to send me with a lab slip in between annuals if I feel it's needed. Yoga Trainer infamously asked me "if I wanted to die like my sister did", and no, I do not. But, I also don't want to walk through life being obsessed with needing to lose weight lest I die an untimely death, consumed with shame and guilt when and if I don't make the appropriate effort to lose weight, or consumed with making a succeeding effort if I do. (Nice to meet you... my name is Perfectionist!)

Lately I've been reflecting on my path over the past few years, mostly because I started working with a new personal trainer recently and I'm trying to work through the emotional scars leftover from Yoga Trainer. When I started to work with Yoga Trainer in November 2007, it was because I wanted toned arms and abs to go with my wedding dress, and also because I was at the height of paranoia about possible health problems a la Cowgirl Alice. Two years later, I still hadn't really lost much or any weight and I wasn't much more toned either... a matter on which Yoga Trainer always vacillated between brittle old school yoga master punishment and mellow new age yoga master encouragement, the former eventually winning out and driving me away. Whenever he'd question me along the way as to why I wasn't fully committed to losing weight I'd tell him, "I'm really conflicted because I consider myself part of the Fat Acceptance community." His reply: a blank stare, followed by a demand to get into Warrior pose ASAP while I contemplate why I was letting that get in the way of my personal goal. The irony is that I never really had a personal goal to begin with because I always felt so conflicted.

Exit Yoga Trainer and enter Boxy Lady. I chose Boxy Lady specifically because she learned about training people of size from one Cinder Ernst and because she's a member of NAAFA. I also chose Boxy Lady because she's a boxer and that's kick ass! When I was interviewing potential new trainers (believe me, I wasn't going to go down the Yoga Trainer road again), Boxy Lady almost told me she wouldn't train me because one of my goals was to lose weight. When I clarified that I wanted to lose some weight, not half my body size, she breathed a sigh of relief and we were in business. I love working with her because she's not afraid to make me work (I'm looking at you, YMCA trainer who was afraid of making this fattie have a heart attack from doing crunches), and while she's tough she never talks down to me and never puts her own words in my mouth or her own goals in my head (suck on that, Yoga Trainer).

Something happened in the past week. Firstly, I started reading Two Whole Cakes (formerly Fatshionista) on a daily basis. As you'll see by the latest entry as of this posting date, blogger Lesley is a proponent that each person is the "undisputed expert" on his or her own body and that she is "in favor of people finding happiness and fulfillment by whatever path they choose". Thank you for that, Lesley. It's kinda what I needed to hear to move forward and not feel so conflicted. Lesley goes on in that sentence to say, "so long as they support the rights of others to make their own decisions and don’t prescribe behaviors." I believe this also. It's why I believe I will always support Fat Acceptance no matter where my own path takes me.

The other thing that happened was a conversation with my long-lost coworker and sister zaftig chick, Janie. Janie told me she'd been struggling for awhile with a raging sugar addiction and compulsive overeating, to the point that she joined Overeaters Anonymous and hired a personal trainer for three days a week. Her doctor had told her she was on the verge on becoming diabetic, which is what spurred her action plan. Please let it be known that Janie is a self described radical: feminist, activist, and lots of other -ists too. I never, in my wildest dreams, would have thought I'd hear from her lips that she belongs to a 12-step program and is radically trying to lose weight. Not only did our conversation challenge all I knew to be true about Janie, it challenged my own assumptions about what might be considered politically correct in the world of weight loss.

Janie's story also struck me on a really personal level. I feel like my eating has gotten off the hook lately (along with a lackadaisical attitude about needing to do any exercise between weekly training sessions, ahem). I plan to eat and purchase great and healthy food at the grocery store each week, and then it gets pushed aside in favor of super processed, super salty fare in super quantities. Not everyday of course, but most days, and I realize I'd reached the tipping point. When all my favorite clothes start to feel tight, that changes things. When I no longer feel good about myself, or the way I'm eating, that changes things. I just didn't quite know how to get out of that mode and back into healthful eating. Hearing Janie talk about her own struggles thankfully shocked my system enough to make a couple changes that are so far going well. More about that in a future posting.

Of course, the ever-conflicted part of me is compelled to say (or re-state) a couple things at this point. For starters, I really do believe that each person has the right to make choices for her or his own body. Given that I have a familial risk factor for diabetes and heart disease (Alice), a familial risk factor for high blood pressure and "bad" cholestorol (Dad), and a burning desire to do things like snowboard and surf, it just feels like it's time to lose a little weight. If you're reading this, and especially if you're also zaftig, please don't take this as a sign that I've sold out or that I'm hoping to become skinny-minny. Also, don't feel that this will become a weight loss blog. That's the last thing I want my blog to become. I've always chosen to be honest when writing and I'll be that same way if and when I lose weight and want to talk about it. If anything, the politics of losing weight is far more important and interesting for me to talk about than trumpeting about my own possible losses.

As for those possible losses, who knows if they will happen. I feel like I've hit the reset button several times over the past few years (another reason I've been reflecting) and have not really gained much ground. I do think I've gained perspective, though, and that's very important to me and my life. While my path lay ahead of me, I don't quite know what's coming next and that's pretty scary. I'm trying not to be afraid of or motivated by failing while simultaneously not being afraid of or motivated by succeeding, and that's a weird place to be. Talk about political.

Yesterday's story

2010-10-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

Back in 1997 I started working with my first therapist, the lovely and talented Sharilyn Marshall, MFT, concentrating on body image issues. In the nine years that I saw her, she helped me in myriad ways both relating to body image and not. She helped me come alive in my life, truth be told. I wouldn't be who I am today without her.

One thing she gave me that I'll never forget, and that will always be on my shelf no matter how outdated, was a copy of the book Fat!So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size. I remember reading it in wonder, thinking that the ideas within were totally ground-breaking. I just took this book off the shelf the other day, as a matter of fact. And you know what? The ideas within are still ground-breaking. Maybe a little bit less so now, 12 years after it's publication, but not that much. Fat people are discriminated against in so many overt ways (duh), and unfortunately that's still the norm for our culture.

Fat!So? is a large part of the reason I say "fat" instead of tending to use other, more common names such as "overweight", "plus size" or "plump". You'll hear me liken fat rights to gay rights in several ways and this is one of them. Just as the gay rights movement took back words like "fag" and "queer", I'm doing my part to take back the word "fat". I got called fat a lot as an insult growing up, a word that would make me inevitably burst into tears and run away to cower. Call me fat now, and I'll just say, "That's right, I'm fat. And...?" It's a descriptor above all else. I am fat.

Back in September 2005, I started this blog to chime in with all the other fat activists and hopefully become one myself. A couple years ago, I realized I just couldn't keep up with the blog in general, much less as a tool for activism, and quite honestly wanting/trying to speak for many, not just for myself, grew tiresome. I changed the title of my blog from "Guide to the Fat Life" to "Guide to (her own) Fat Life". How to make peace with being fat is extremely personal, as is blogging, for starters. And in the end I'm a quiet person who sometimes has big ideas and opinions on (or off) the topic of fat politics... as fantastical as the notion was when I started this blog, I'm just not an activist.

Today I came across Fatshionista. I really like Lesley Kinzel's voice. What she's doing, to me, is true activism. And again, that activism is not something I'm part of (anymore).

Let's get physical... amphibious, even!

2010-10-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

Today I'd like to give props to Columbia Sportswear. They are pretty much the only mainstream sportswear company out there to be producing plus sizes, other than trusty ol' Lands End, LL Bean and Eddie Bauer. (Honorable mention, of course, to Junonia as they are dedicated to plus-size activewear.)

I'm giving Columbia a special shout-out particularly because they make more mainstream looking stuff for plus sized ski and snowboard bunnies, and for the gals who take hiking and travel-packing more seriously. A few posts back I mentioned having purchased Columbia snowboard clothing for this coming season. It's cut generously but still has a nice semi-fitted feminine line and is NOT baggy, thank you very much. The quality is also outstanding for the price. Today I purchased a few things, mostly from their Outlet, although what I really wanted was the Sweet Slope Hoodie (in Black Cherry). Ah, another day, Hoodie... I'm hoping you and I shall meet via coupon in the immediate future.

Now that I think about it, I also have to give shouts to Lands End for their swimwear options for plus sizes. I've been wanting a more serious bathing suit to wear to water aerobics (which I've never tried, ack) because at present all I have are two fun, fashionable and upper-thigh-bulge-covering bathing suits. (Thanks to Torrid and It Figures at Macy's for those!) Lands End has several options in a range of styles, colors and prices. Also: they have both long and short sleeve rash guards, which you can't find anywhere else.

If you're wondering, this sportswear/activewear hunt comes after a week-long vacation on Catalina Island in which Honey Bunny and I were quite active. Trust me, I never thought I'd enjoy an active trip, and we certainly had no plans to make it thus... it all just kinda evolved naturally and day by day. I had a lot of mostly cute clothes for the trip and knew I was going into a hot, dusty and salt water environment. I just didn't consider the exact limitations of said clothes once we were in the kayak, on the trail, and in the water.

Having grown up fat and endured all kinds of "teasing" about being large in skimpy beach clothing, I've always opted to cover myself as much as possible but it comes with a big price tag. Good lord it takes forever to completely dry a swimdress when it's still on your body, even in the sun! Let's not forget those days when you're feeling extra self-conscious and opt to wear the t-shirt and/or cutoff shorts over your suit. And how about that bath sheet-sized beach towel, the one that actually makes it all the way around your hips and will tie there, so you can wear it to the restrooms or snack bar? You might as well use a dolly to lug that water-logged shit back to your hotel room after hanging out at the beach all day. Speaking of getting back to the hotel room: you also need a change of clothes unless your hotel is close (not the case on Catalina, at least for the good beach in Avalon or, well, anywhere you're staying in Two Harbors) or you're able to get completely dry first. I can't tell you how many times I've failed to bring a change of clothes and picked my back to the hotel with legs bowed because the combination of wetness and sand and the resulting additional chafing against the thighs sucks ass.

A few of the more interesting trails/paths we could have taken - at least on the west side of the island - would require both walking and swimming. Given that we were in Southern California during its crazy heat wave, that option was feeling very attractive... and yet, we don't possess the clothing (me) or the skills (HB) to be amphibious. I stopped while hiking at one point to peer over a small bluff down to the ocean and thought, is there an ideal outfitting for a combined land/water hike, and if so do fat women have access to it? I'm guessing a regular size person could cruise into any REI and walk out with high performance clothes and shoes for just such an occasion. Us fat ladies have to be a bit more clever and cobble it together via various online vendors.

Believe me, I don't know if I could ever make myself step foot out of a hotel room, much less my own house, dressed fully in spandex. Unfortunately I'm thinking that's what it's gonna take for a comfortable amphibious adventure in the heat. As of today, I'm digging the C9 capri-length running tights (with groovy blue swish or basic black), which cover legs enough not to chafe in the usual areas but still allow for some cooling via the length and fabric. If I got the blue tights, I'd likely choose the matching tank, or if I stuck with basic black I'd kick up the sauciness a notch with the Solar Pink Optipop version. (I'm thinking a tank would be crucial here due to reduced surface area needing to dry, and because it's cooler in the heat.) Because I'm prone to burning and rashing like a mo-fo in the sun, and - lucky me and my fair skin - also seem to be slightly allergic to sunscreen, I'd put a rash guard over top of the tank. To top... er, bottom off the ensemble, I'd choose the Outpost Hybrid shoes. I know there are a lot of good water sandal options out there but mama needs a good walking shoe that can go in water, not the other way around.

An amphibious adventure is just part of why I'm thinking this through. Honestly, the likelihood of another trip to Catalina before next summer is low. Certainly there are many other places where I could scrabble around but I do live in Northern California where both ocean and river water is crazy cold even on a warm day. I'm thinking this through for other exercise options, even just for personal training. My current closet of exercise clothing is ridiculous at best. I have one pair of capri length "real" exercise pants and a pair of bermuda shorts that I made by cutting the legs off sweatpants. My tops are all t-shirts that got tossed out of my regular wardrobe for one reason or another. They often double as pajama tops. Uh, yeah.

This is a dichotomy if there ever was one, but I'm insanely picky about my exercise wear. If something doesn't fit, feel and look exactly right, I can't buy it... hence the reason I've not gotten anything new in the past three years and why I persist in wearing unhemmed cutoff sweat pants and old stained t-shirts. So, I'm on the hunt for nicer and more performance-oriented activewear and hoping some of the above options will work out. I'll let you know if I end up leaving the house in spandex and how many shots of tequila it took to do so.

* A note on sizing for activewear: many of the options presented in this post only go up to a size 3x which I think is a damn shame. From personal experience, I do feel that both Columbia's and Land's End's size 3x is quite generous in its cut and this is reflected in many of the reviewer comments on individual products. Thankfully Junonia goes much higher than 3x and can cover just about any plus-size woman who needs activewear. (I personally don't love Junonia's cut as it is too generous and I like more fitted items, but still, I'm so glad they exist!)

Yay! A first in the fashion world

2010-09-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

First-Ever Plus-Size Fashion Show Hits NYC Fashion Week!

http://stylenews.peoplestylewatch.com/2010/09/16/first-ever-plus-size-show-hits-fashion-week/

Congrats and thanks to OneStopPlus for making it happen!

Bay Area Zaftig Chick Social Club

2010-08-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

For any of you who live in the Bay Area and want to join me in my new Meetup social club, click here:

Bay Area Zaftig Chick Social Club

Accepting new members, and anyone is welcome as long as you are a zaftig chick or a friend/fan of one!

Enjoyable vs. joyless

2010-08-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about things that are enjoyable and things that aren't. This is in part due to my two-week staycation in late July, where I pressed the pause button on work and really tried to just enjoy l-i-v-i-n. The most vivid result of blogging about my vacation was seeing how much of it revolved around food and how food selection and eating has the power to make me feel great or to make me feel like shit.

Take, for instance, a dinner I had last weekend at Dosa with a couple of female friends I'd made online but hadn't yet met in person. It was Awkward, capital A, as "blind dates" can often be. I was dining with these women as an effort to make new friends where I live, people to possibly hang out with. What the experience taught me is that joyful eating is a fairly intimate act for me. Dosa is currently one of my faves and eating there, until now, has been awesome. If I'm with close friends or with Honey Bunny, I can let it all hang out. I can close my eyes while I hum about how yummy that bite was. I can give my true preferences for dishes I'd like to share (or not share, as the case may be). I can eat the whole thing if I want to. On my blind date, I didn't feel as though I could do any of that because the level of intimacy wasn't there. Along with the awkwardness of the conversation etc, I may as well have been chewing on curry-flavored cardboard. It was joyless. I'd been looking so forward to eating there, too.

In stark contrast, at least in retrospect, was how I viewed food intake while on vacation. I ate casually and not on a set schedule or with a set menu like I do when I'm going to work. I had the time to ask myself, What sounds good today? Because I was dutifully trying to stay busy by going out in the world and doing fun things, I actually thought about food less. As I began each day I had time and space to actually think through what I wanted, and obtain it, and enjoy it, and then move on. The issue of food was taken off the table (no pun intended!) in this way.

I'm a girl who loves good food. I don't think that will ever change, even if I lose weight someday. In fact, I'll go so far as to say, I don't want it to change. In my version of the world, food should be enjoyable and satisfying. (At least to those of us who enjoy food; I know there are some folks who just don't and never have, and that's fine, too). And, I surmise that by giving into indulgences as they came up, it actually made me much less likely to need indulgences every single day, or to mindlessly eat.

In the end, I felt terrific. I'll cop to the fact that I formally worked out just once in those two weeks of vacation (with an additional smattering of brisk walks with Honey Bunny) but by the end of it I actually felt like I lost weight. I don't care if I even did lose weight or not; my state of mind was the important thing. I didn't trip out on the indulgences I did go for.

Since returning to work, I feel like it's all sliding downhil again. I work hard to eat a really nice and balanced breakfast before work, but that's about all I can say for healthy eating. I've managed to mostly stay away from the Snack Closet of Doom (that which contains Halloween size chocolate and candy for our work events, among other snacks), which is good. I've tried to think about getting a nice and balanced lunch but the reality of work is that there is often not time or space to do so. I also have a horrible habit of eating at my computer, where I am all day long as it is, so that I can Facebook and read blogs unabashedly. It would probably serve me well to get away and be in the moment with my lunch.

One good habit I implemented upon my return to work is a fruit plate next to my computer. Every Monday I bring, or go get, five pieces of fresh, tasty looking fruit for my fruit plate, which is there to satisfy afternoon sweet-tooth cravings. It's no chocolate, that's for sure, but right now the stone fruit is super good and I'm always surprised at how yummy it can be. My rule is that I eat a piece of fruit first and if I'm still dying for chocolate, I'm allowed to get ONE piece of dark chocolate from the Snack Closet. I know that sounds restrictive but I had to find a way to stay out of that closet. It's a mindless eating nightmare waiting to happen.

Something else that came up for examination during my vacation was my relationship with Yoga Trainer. Summer is always his busiest time for travel and so he's gone a lot and I end up falling off the exercise wagon partially as a result of that. I had a conversation with my sporty friend The Mirthmaker about Yoga Trainer and how I've been feeling less and less satisfied with his services. I'd not told her many particulars about YT over the past two and a half years that I've been working with him, but I really went there during this conversation. Remember the intervention? I told her about that and she gasped, put her hand over her mouth and then asked me how the hell I could have ever returned. Likewise when I told her about the time I was choking for breath while having a total emotional meltdown during a hardcore walk with him and he pointedly asked me, "Do you want to die like your sister did?" The Mirthmaker is, herself, a fan of boot camp style exercise and so it took me by surprise that she was surprised. My feeling about these - and other, perhaps more minor - instances with YT is that it was probably something I "needed" to hear in order to motivate me. But did it? Obviously not.

It's a long story and I'm not going to go there (yet) on this blog about my issues with outspoken people (read it on the other blog if so inclined), but needless to say Yoga Trainer is someone I deem "outspoken". I've also admitted to myself that he is pretty darn egotistical and has little to no interest in hearing or working with my side of the story, what I think will motivate me, what I think is best for myself. Talk about joyless. Hey, I think that YT is a fundamentally good person, I've learned some great stuff from him in terms of staying in a positive headspace and deep breathing, and there have been plenty of times I've enjoyed myself during our sessions when he's taken a more nurturing approach. We've reached the tipping point is all. He is gone again for another month to travel, and upon his return I've told Honey Bunny that I'm willing to train together with YT once a week max, or maybe not at all, but otherwise I'll be finding a new and female trainer to work with. Let's hope it sticks this time, eh? My real hope, though, is that it will be enjoyable and fulfilling no matter what the outcome.

Speaking of training and losing weight, I've been meaning to post a review or at least mention the TV show Huge. Admittedly I was very tentative about watching. Being on ABC Family meant it could go down a judgemental road real quick. But, I'm pleasantly surprised and it's actually become one of my favorite shows of the season. I feel like it does a good job of making the characters multi-dimensional, that no one person is bad or good, right or wrong. Everyone has feelings and motivations, both fat and thin. I think Nikki Blonsky is doing a great job as main character Will, a girl so incensed by her parents sending her to fat camp, and by society's pressure to be thin and girly, that she's vowed to gain weight while there. I'm also loving Raven Goodwin as Becca, the character I most personally identify with. The show is based on the book by Sasha Paley, which I have yet to read but really looking forward to it. Check out the show if you can!

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Scale

2010-06-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

I'm a "Pott-head" and have been jacked up about checking out the "Harry Potter and the Wizarding World" attraction at Universal Orlando since the second I got wind of it. My sister (and sister Pott-head) and I even tentatively planned to go check it out this December, when the weather sucks in coastal California and rules in Florida.

Well... looks like I probably won't fit on one of the rides.

Correction: I probably won't fit on the most super awesome ride of the whole place.

Ugh!!

Of course, having seen my eldest sister ejected from a ride at Disneyland for being too fat - this was when I was a teenager - I'm keenly aware of the size and weight limitations that can come with theme park rides. Honey Bunny and I went to Disneyland for part of our honeymoon and I spent the days leading up to our visit fretting away, wringing hands, rending garments and all. I remember being in queue for Space Mountain and telling Honey Bunny, "If I can't fit, I'll jump out and you should just go without me!" I didn't want him to miss the fun of a ride he'd never been on before, even if I was crying my eyes out in embarassment in the nearest bathroom. It didn't turn out that way, thankfully... I fit in all but one of the rides at both Disneyland and California Adventure. (It was the orange-themed wave swinger that seems to no longer exist at CA, in case you were wondering.)

Not fitting in the seats at Universal Orlando has definitely crossed my mind, but I still found the news about Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey's size limitations a bit shocking. More shocking still is some of the response from fans. Pott-heads are so desperate to get on this ride that they're willing to mount personal weight loss goals! Check out one Banks Lee.

I have to admit that when I started reading his blog I was fully against the notion of losing weight for the sole reason of fitting on a theme park ride. Where are all my brothers and sisters calling out the Universal sizeists here??

Banks Lee is an affable character, though, and quickly won me over. His motivation is pure and simple... and therein lies the (hor)crux of a big issue for me.

Motivation. It's something I can't easily identify and never think to use as a true aid for myself. I've talked previously about wanting (and needing) to lose weight (and having really conflicted feelings about it). I've tried to set a goal and stick to it, to no avail. Whatever temporary motivation I use to start working towards the goal eventually leaves me, and thus leaves me feeling purposeless. Needing to shift one's motivation over time to suit on-going and changing needs is natural, actually, but doesn't come naturally to me. I have to applaud Banks for setting a measurable and attainable goal of losing enough weight to get on the ride. He has a sense of purpose with a cool reward waiting for him at the finish line.

It had me wondering if I should keep the penciled-in date of December with my sis, and also work towards losing some weight to get on what's sure to be a really kick-ass ride (and hell, make the plane ride from CA to FL more endurable). Honestly I wanted to have a knee-jerk reaction to that thought but I couldn't think of a good enough reason to be so reactionary...

Bitten

2010-03-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

Apparently I've been bitten by the snowboarding bug. Or at the very least, the excitement bug. Last weekend I went to the snow, as promised, and took a snowboarding lesson for the first time. It was a panic-inducing and terrifying experience -- and that just accounts for the days, hours and minutes leading up to the lesson. The actual lesson was pretty darn groovy, even if it was in a near whiteout.

I had actually seen Therapist on the Monday prior to the trip and told her that I was surprisingly calm about the whole thing. Strangely, just telling her that started the issues ball rolling. Funny how that happens... I either go to therapy not wanting to talk about something but then I do and feel a million times better, OR I go in thinking I'm all good and come out of the session whipped into a froth.

On Wednesday of last week, I took a long lunch to go to my local ski shop to get fitted for rentals. They assured me that they had rental boots that would fit both my wide-ass feet and my wide-ass calves, and yet there the sales rep stood before me: flummoxed as all hell. "Huh. These usually fit our most unfittable clients," he said. I left in tears and called my bestie for a pep talk.

"Just do the lesson and if you hate it, then you go back to the lodge and relax. It doesn't mean you're a failure if you don't like skiing anymore. In fact, it's a victory if you just go and try it."

Good point.

And yet I found myself in quite the dither for the rest of the day, culminating in a long, unavoidable talk with Honey Bunny about the possibility of just forgetting about this whole skiing thing. It become clear through the meltdown and tears that, at least at this point, I have too much invested in trying skiing "again". Skiing was so much a part of my identity growing up, and I have always felt like it would be easy to pick back up again... that I should pick it back up again, because if I don't then what does that say about me? That I'm too fat to do it anymore? That I no longer care for something that I felt a passion for when I was a kid? And, worst of all... what if I'm no longer good at it? I decided at that moment that I was going to switch to snowboarding. Doing so meant that if it was a failure, there was little to nothing invested in it. I had an excuse for being slow at learning or entirely bad at it: I've never done it before.

The next day I contacted the resort and changed my private lesson to snowboarding, but not before I turned the receptionist into a 2nd therapist. I told her I was fat and not in the best of shape, and asked if I was crazy for trying snowboarding. She laughed and said, among many other things, "Just come prepared for it to be really hard because it's really hard for everyone in the beginning. And remember, it's always good to try new things, so this is a good thing you're doing."

I also went back to the ski shop and got fitted for the boots and board. To my surprise the boots were not abundantly more comfortable than ski boots, but they were definitely more forgiving. Hey, my toes did not fall asleep within 30 seconds! That is a snow sports miracle for wide-footed people everywhere.

This is a good time to mention that the weatherpeople were forcasting 80% chance of snow starting at, oh, 1pm on Friday. My lesson was scheduled for 2pm. This didn't make me unhappy or panicked (yet). It, in fact, relieved me by providing an extra excuse for possible failure at snowboarding.

Also a good time to mention that pretty much everyone I told about trying snowboarding would stop in their tracks, look me up and down, and say something like, ".....really? Cuz my sister's friend - she's 5'10", 105 lbs and a gym fanatic - tried snowboarding when she was 18 and had to be on heavy painkillers from the bruising and muscle aches for the following five days. Then she went back a week later and tried it again and broke both arms." Having spent six long weeks in external traction for a shattered wrist from trying to get back into my other childhood passion, rollerskating, I was a tad worried. Wrist guards, check.

We arrived at the resort at about noon on Friday. I started crying in the parking lot but quickly sucked it up. My nephew, who has been snowboarding since 2002, decided he was going to introduce me to boarding before my lesson. It was probably nerves more than anything but the 20-minute act of both him and I trying desperately to get me buckled into the bindings sent me back into orbit. My toes had long since fallen asleep, my feet in general were starting to ache, the snow was falling faster and faster, the wind picking up. I choked out, "I... need to go to the bathroom. See you after the lesson." More crying ensued. I went up to the cafeteria where I looked out the giant windows at the slopes. Watched my nephew meet up with Honey Bunny, watched as he told HB that I fled, HB briefly looking up at the cafeteria windows, then looking down in defeat, followed by a slow shrug, and then off they went to the lift together.

I felt so miserable in that moment. I felt so abandoned and pathetic. But at least I was sitting down, my feet slowly coming back to life. I watched thin people come in from skiing and boarding, smiles on their wind-chapped faces, sitting down exhausted from their day of riding. Why can't it ever be that easy for me?, I wondered. I'm just going to go down to the ticket office and cancel this fucking lesson.

But, the more I sat there, the more I regained my composure. I had to decide to let go of every single expectation I had. I had to decide not to hate everyone in the room for being seemingly better at this snow shit than me. Eventually, as I stared out of the window at the worsening weather conditions, I thought, Omigod, I'm on fucking Hoth. And I cracked up! I also formulated the best Facebook posting ever (IMHO) in my head, making myself laugh even more. I couldn't post it until I had signal but hey, my inside joke propelled me to a better mood and a can-do attitude.

At 1:50, I marched right out to the lesson meeting point and stood there, completely unafraid of What Happens Next. Awesome Rich, as I now call him, was my instructor. Like me, he is in his late 30's and married. Unlike me, he's competed in Super Pipe competitions with the likes of Shaun White. I love how he said, "I did all that shit and lived the life but now I'm here, and I love what I do. I would so much rather be teaching you how to snowboard than competing for a medal." There was absolutely no irony or sarcasm in his voice, trust me. I believe him because he's a great teacher who taught me to snowboard.

I snowboarded, people! At first with him holding my hand, helping me maintain low speed and control, but eventually on my own. With mascara running down my face (see also: The Makeup Queen, 100% Whored Up). With a snow outfit I thought was cute but really was kinda lame, oh well! Dude, I even wore goggles.

By the end of the lesson, I had only fallen twice and Awesome Rich told me he thought I did really well for a first-timer. He also said, "I'm pretty sure all the lifts are going to be iced over within a half hour, so I would recommend going inside at this point." Phew. Sipping a Vodka Tonic as I sat in the resort saloon waiting for my nephew and Honey Bunny to come in was a nice close to the day. It was also nice to stretch my calves and feet. Imagine trying to push a brick through solid ground using only your toes and some leverage provided by bended knees, and that's snowboarding on your toe edge. The heel edge is not as hard but is trickier and requires a finer sense of balance. Snowboarding is intensely physically demanding but is much, much easier technically than everyone said.

I wussed out a bit and didn't go back on Saturday like Rich had recommended. I loved it but I needed to completely come down from the high anxiety of the week leading up, and visit with family a bit (the actual reason we went to the snow, FYI). I did plan on going back on Sunday but HB came home on Saturday night looking as fried as I've ever seen him and said he couldn't possibly ski another day. Oh well, here's looking to next season.

Meanwhile I'd like to condition a bit and am thinking about purchasing a balance board (which is good for a lot of things, I hear). When I think back on what it was like to snowboard on my own, especially when I realized that Awesome Rich had let go of my hand and I was doing it on my own accord... it was amazing. I can see how people get hooked. Apparently I'm hooked.

Psst! I also found some wide boot and better clothing options that I'll be testing in the meantime. I'm having fun. Life is indeed good when you try new things.

Yikes, Scoobs... snow sports!

2010-02-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

Age 8: Learned how to ski for the first time and love, love, loved it.

Age 10: A solid Intermediate level skier, I'd happily graduated to doing stemming/skidding turns and self-imposed time trials on my favorite runs.

Age 13: Stopped skiing because puberty hit and I could no longer fit in my ski clothes, nor could I find any new ones in my dad's price range that I would be ok being seen in.

Age 17: Went skiing with my BFF for the first time in four years wearing jeans and a casual jacket (froze my ass off). Ended the day thinking I was going to die of bruising and muscle aches, and swore off any future skiing.

Age 25: Heavily intoxicated while watching the Winter X Games on TV with my roommates, Jonnel Janewicz crosses the screen as one of the contenders of Women's Snowboarder X. I attended school with Jonnel from pre-school through high school graduation, was in the Girl Scouts with her in 6th grade, and she, eh... really wasn't so nice to me. Seeing her success as an athlete and cool snowboarder chick threw me into a shame spiral of epic proportions, and I decided I was going to learn how to snowboard. Lack of funds, motivation and courage prevented this goal from coming to fruition.

Age 32: Honey Bunny talks me into going on a trip to his favorite resort to get snowboarding lessons while he skis. A month prior I find appropriate and not-completely-unfortunate snow gear for fat girls at Junonia, and HB orders it for me as a gift. As luck would have it, it was a warm winter and the resort closed the weekend before our trip.

Ages 33 - 36: Honey Bunny tries, unsuccessfully, each winter to talk me into going skiing or snowboarding with him. I give him various excuses each year.

Age 37: THERE'S NO GETTING OUT OF IT THIS YEAR.

I'll set the stage for you. Last week, HB announced he was going to go skiing on the weekend, and asked if I was coming with him or not. I said no. He asked why. I didn't have a great answer, and an argument ensued about my phyiscal and emotional readiness - or not - for snow sports. He left on the weekend to go skiing while I stayed home to play out my requisite secret single behaviors (usually involves a super veggie burrito with extra hot green sauce and a giant lemony Diet Coke from Zona Rosa while catching up on all the "chick shows" backlogged in my DV-R).

Just about to embark on my shopping marathon at the Union Square Macy's on Saturday (a not-so-secret, not-so-single behavior, but nevertheless fun to do while Man is out of town), I grabbed my coat from the hall closet... the same hall closet where the Junonia snow clothes have been stored since five years ago when they were purchased. I saw them hanging there - lonely, dusty, rejected - and wondered why I was being so resistant. I took off my nice shopping clothes and tried them on, right there and then.

Once I had the clothes on, I could picture myself at least trying to learn (snowboarding) or remember (skiing). One of the biggest reasons behind creating this blog was to push the notion that no fat girl should be afraid to TRY... to try something new, to try something scary, to try something that fat people don't normally try purely because they're fat. Little by little, my resistance was worn down as I stood there and stared in the mirror at myself in that snow suit, and tried to visualize having a good time trying something new.

So, I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna suit up and rent equipment and take a lesson and see how it goes. Not sure if it's skiing or snowboarding I'm gonna do, but I'll figure it out sometime in the next month.

Not before tending to a little business, however... the business known as vanity. As I told HB upon his return, there are two levels of comfort for me: the comfort of knowing I look ok, and actual comfort. The snow pants he got me are great on all levels. The jacket is... not.

I got to quick work on the internet (eg. the only place a fat chick can purchase sport-specific gear for anything other than the gym). Thank god Eddie Bauer, LL Bean and Lands End carry plus sizes because I actually found six jackets that would work. I can't help but think about five years ago and the now-unfortunate snow jacket I got, and how it was literally the ONLY thing available at that time, internet or not.

In the end, I whittled it down to two jackets, and decided to have both shipped thinking I'd return the one that didn't work. They both arrived yesterday and are both just lovely. So lovely, in fact, that Honey Bunny said I should keep both. The SnowPack 700 is a lightweight option, good for hanging out in cold and/or snow in general, especially good for warmer slope days and when/if I get better and need less padding. It also has a nice fitted shape to it and is strangely flattering. I got it in Persian Blue, although am quite tempted to exchange for the Bright Raspberry. Hmmm.

The SnowRoller is The Works, by comparison. It's not as fitted or flattering but is quite warm, has lots of pockets and ways to customize the fit both inside and out, and has the added benefit of looking, shape-wise anyhow, most like the regular size snowboard chick-wear. I got it in Ice Blue. As Honey Bunny also had me try on the original Junonia jacket (just because it's tough, thick and uber warm) and it didn't look so bad by comparison, he convinced me not to eBay it. It's also in the powder blue range. In toto, that makes three powder blue jackets: one light, one medium, one heavy. Sweet!

I also purchased some long underwear from Lands End along with the jackets. Ok, can I just say that they have come a long way since 1984? At that time, the only thing available for me (ahem, was affordable to dad) was the waffle-weave type in Men's sizes. Looking back, they were clearly too tight or not sized right in general because I remember wrestling with the bottoms at the end of every run, wrestling to keep them up to my waist and yet not bagging in the crotch. Yuck. These here modern "silk underwear" are thin, stretchy and fit correctly and closely to the body but without being tight. Who knew?

The last two things on my list are gloves and a beanie. Those I can get from an actual sports store and will probably be from a cool brand (yay!!) such as Burton, Da Kine, whatever. I told you I was vain.

Oh, and just so you know... I'm Facebook friends with Jonnel now after having messaged her to say that I saw her on the X Games in the 90's and was really impressed by seeing her success.

Wholly offensive

2010-02-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

Yahoo's Shine is just brimming with interesting information, it seems. When I was digging through the archives to find links for my last post, I came across this one:

Should your employer offer incentives for losing weight? Whole Foods does

GASP.

I can't figure out what is more offensive -- the fact that Whole Foods offers incrementally more % of an employee discount to those who have a BMI of <30, or that their CEO fully admits it has everything to do with reducing health care costs of the company (and, presumably, nothing to do with the actual health of the employees). I keep thinking, Could he have at least made some attempt at spin in this situation? (Although I generally hate spin, especially from companies who do almost $5 billion in annual sales. And yes, sometimes I forego my values in favor of being reactionary.)

Also of note in this article: "Research indicates that companies with employees who are fit and healthy do have a better bottom line." OMG.

When I told Honey Bunny about all this last night, in addition to interjecting the question "Has anyone sued them yet?" about 14 times during the course of my story, he concluded by saying, "The difference between a 20% and 30% discount isn't really a big deal when you're buying a $25 bottle of laundry detergent to begin with." Heh.

Again with the reactionary: I'm now boycotting Whole Foods. Let's see how long I can hold out, given that they're my go-to for all the crap our co-op doesn't offer.

Jerri Gray's responsibility

2010-02-10T11:24:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking about this article ever since I came across it:

Where do parents fit in the childhood obesity puzzle?

For starters I always love the inevitable accompanying photo of a really fat person - so fat that s/he is seemingly bursting at the seams - with these articles. [Sarcasm.] The fat person is always shown from the back or, if from the front, from the neck or waist down, presumably to preserve the person's anonymity. I especially love the one with this article since it's a fat child surrounded by several other fat children at the pool, everyone in bathing suits.

That said, I actually liked the content of the article and thought it made some good points. I got to it because I read this piece and also this one, about Alexander Draper being removed from his home and mother and put in foster care. Social services asserts his mother was being medically neglectful by not tending to her son's severe obesity.

This is one of those rare cases where an interest of mine (fatism) collides with my work world (child welfare). While I'm not a social worker myself, I've been orbiting in the public social services world for long enough to have an informed opinion.

To address that particular area: it is one of the most traumatic experiences for a child to be removed from his/her home, and it "should" only happen if there is an immediate and compelling safety issue at hand. Obesity, to me, doesn't qualify here. It is a compelling risk that can be managed (starting immediately) by social services while still keeping the child in his home. Unfortunately, Alexander's mother, Jerri Gray, fled the state with him upon learning that she was being investigated for neglect and thus, we have the makings of a safety issue for the child, and he was removed from her care when Jerri and Alexander resurfaced. It's just too bad that reports from news outlets are failing to mention this key plot twist in favor of sensationalism about childhood obesity and criminality.

Allow me, for just a moment, to indulge in being even more of a card-carrying member of the PC Police. Here we have a single Black mother who was working the equivalent of 2-3 jobs to make ends meet, and who said she'd bring home fast food for dinner because there was no time to cook. Let's assume that if she's working 2-3 jobs she's probably financially strapped as well, and fast food is cheap. Fast food chains also tend to be prevalent in low income neighborhoods and especially where there are populations of color, and therefore those populations tend to have health and/or weight problems as a result. There is also a huge problem in the US with disproportionality, with predominantly Black families in the child welfare system. Can you say "vicious circle"?

The point of the original article was to explore the question: if adults must always accept personal responsibility for being fat, then who bears the responsibility for a child being fat? I've often wondered that myself, especially as Honey Bunny and I have been trying to have a kid. Because I'm fat and have been so since childhood (and HB carries a bit extra himself), does that mean we're destined to have a fat kid? Because I don't have great exercise habits myself, will I care less about making sure my kid has an active lifestyle?

I think of my friend Gina and her daughter Chloe. Gina is petite in every way but I would never characterize her as "active". While she does enjoy some occasional snowboarding in winter and casual bike rides in the summer, she doesn't go to the gym or to yoga or anything like that. In fact, she eschews "working out" because it's not enjoyable to her. But yet, Chloe has been active in soccer and softball since she was about five years old, and at Gina's behest. Chloe likes those particular sports too, of course, otherwise Gina says she would find something else for Chloe to do. Chloe is now 13 and I've known her since she was four; Gina's got some years of parenting under her belt, and I plan to steal several of her methods (up to and including taking my kid to rock shows, Burning Man and various other events typically for adults that a kid could really enjoy). In the end, I don't know that parents manifesting the athleticism they'd like to see in their kids is what kids need to see in order to integrate being active into their own lives. I could be wrong, though.

On a different and last note, I have to say that the comments section of these types of online articles always really horrify me. There is a lot of judgement, and some outright hatred, for fat and fat people. It makes me wonder: what about being fat is so inexcusable?

what comes next

2010-01-11T14:53:00.001-08:00

I decided to get the title of this posting as a tattoo written across the underside of my left forearm. It will be always be there to remind me to think about what comes next. Or, to remind myself that I don't know what the hell comes next and that there is power in that.

Life has challenged me greatly in the past few months on this topic. For starters, there was the "intervention" by Yoga Trainer in early October. That did far less for me on a physical level than it did on a mental one, in case you're wondering. At the time I was envisioning that I was mere days away from finalizing a weight loss plan that would be perfect! and would work! and that I would be happy to do!, blah blah blah. All I have to say to myself three months later is, "Seriously?" It was far from a write-off or failure, though.

It got me thinking about the goals that I could set and achieve for myself, should I be ready and willing to do so. Admitting that I'm not necessarily ready or willing NOW was the hard part. Yoga Trainer has always been extremely pushy when it comes to my needing to set goals for myself. Having told him numerous times that I don't "do" goals, he decided to start setting them on my behalf. And, I always resignedly agreed to them, knowing that I'd walk out of the studio and likely not follow through. And, I'd return a week later and he'd ask me how my goal was going and I'd say "not so great" and he'd get irked and then spend the next $90 of my time trying to get me back on the path to righteousness. It took until mid-December, when YT turned his crosshairs on Honey Bunny instead of me, that I saw how he was setting us ALL up for failure. Yoga Trainer is a great guy and an incredible athlete, but I'm not sure he is as savvy in human relations as he thinks he is. (DUH. Look no further than how he said what he said to me in early October which in retrospect is kind of, well, fucked!)

We have actually not seen YT in awhile. Things got weird. Not only did my dysfunctional pattern with him come to light, his ego pushed Honey Bunny's to the point of literally walking out of a session. Yoga Trainer's three week vacation is now going on five weeks long, so I'm not sure if we are in mutual avoidance mode or what. I'm amenable to going back, but things need to change. I've been thinking a lot about what I need to say to him, and how to say it, and why.

Overall, Honey Bunny and I have had a rough winter together. It's a long and private story but I will say this: after three weeks of a perpetual battle to keep my head above water, there was a moment. I was so completely defeated by the situation and had done everything I could possibly think to do to right it. The next thing that popped into my head was, "I don't know what comes next," and I started to bawl. In telling my therapist about it after the fact, she said she felt that was a very profound moment for me, in which I needed to give up power and control and to be open to letting whatever needed to happen happen without my intervention. I think she's right. Within 10 minutes of admitting my powerlessness over the situation, it started to turn for the better. We're getting there. I don't have all the answers or solutions, which is the way it should be.

Part of our winter has included acclimating to new cats. They moved in in mid-October and it's been a hard adjustment period. We previously had a very mellow, very independent and aging kitty who was one of the loves of my life, and who passed away fairly suddenly in November 2008. My grief was so intense and daily after she died. I'd had 13 years of taking care of my beautiful cat and it was quite a process getting used to her not being there anymore. Every morning for a couple months I would wake up and think I'd hear her footsteps on the hardwood floors, coming to jump on the bed to snuggle with me... but she was no longer there. Just walking through the pet food aisle at the grocery store was torture, knowing I had no kitty to get food for. No feeding her. No scooping her box. No taking her to the backyard on weekends. But most importantly, no way to show love to a physical presence (although her spiritual presence is quite strong). I was so sad, angry, bitter, grief-stricken for so long. Until one day I realized that I no longer automatically looked for her in the morning, no longer cried after being around other people and their pets, and in fact, felt some relief when HB and I went on our annual summer vacation and I didn't have to get a cat sitter for the first time in 13 years. Not that I didn't miss her, because I did and I do and I probably always will. Because, for fuck's sake, grief is the ultimate "I don't know what comes next".

I grew accustomed to having some independence from my apartment and having to take care of another being, while at the same time feeling like something was missing from my life. Our friend's cat had kittens "accidentally" in July, and we asked if we could take two of them. I had such a mellow experience with my previous cat, why not have two... right? They grew up with their mom at home, and then moved in with us three months later.

They are the cutest little cats, playful and sweet and snuggly. One, or both, also has a peeing problem. At this point, all three chairs and the sofa in my living room have been peed on, as well as the bathtub, a small area rug, and almost every new toy they got for Christmas. Yes, the problem is medical for the most part, but there is a behavioral component to it that has to be tended to. I have been schooled by several vets on what to do and right now - and for an undetermined length of time - our bathtub has 2" of water in it, our living room reeks of vinegar (from treatments to get the pee out) and vinyl (vinyl carpet runners cut up to size/shape of the seating it's on, teeth side up), the bedroom is completely off limits, and they are contained in the back half of our apt while we are not at home and at bedtime. I literally don't know what comes next with them and the peeing and when they will be able to have free reign of the house again, if ever. On my worst days, it has propelled me into panic attacks and I have needed to consider finding a new home for one or both. On my best days, it's simply an adventure and a challenge. As long as I don't try to look too far forward and remember that there is no one hard and fast solution, I'm good. As long as I can remember the great and rewarding things about having cats, I'm good.

I will always wish I had that crystal ball to see what comes next and when. Instead, all I can do is take a deep breath and move forward and know that "what comes next" is only partially determined by me.

*****
UPDATE 1/12/10: Yoga Trainer called literally 10 minutes after I posted this and asked to talk in length about our relationship going forward. I don't think he's a reader, but who knows!

The inevitable intervention

2009-10-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

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??)

Tampon Talk

2009-09-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

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.

What my upper lip and garbage bin at work have taught me

2009-08-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Faith = gone

2009-08-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Social Not-working?

2009-07-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

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.

Food politics

2009-07-06T16:05:00.000-07:00

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...

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.

Awkwardness

2009-06-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

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.

The mental tug-o-war

2009-06-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Happy Birthday, Alicia

2009-05-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Steam rollers & crab apples

2009-04-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

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!

Being on the outside

2009-03-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

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...

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T18:05:00.001-08:00

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!

Newness & the MB Mafia

2009-02-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

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.

Snowboarding

2009-01-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Hello, 2009!

2009-01-03T20:47:00.000-08:00

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!

Two blues amongst 150 reds

2008-11-21T17:58:00.000-08:00

Honey Bunny and I were in San Diego this week for an all-expenses-paid trip to an industry conference in which HB was presented with one of this industry's high honors. Yay for Honey Bunny! It was pretty sweet being set up at a nice hotel, most meals catered, not to mention being able to hang with my San Diegan peeps. Only problem was that people from this industry happen to be pretty darn conservative and pretty darn proud of it, while we are pretty darn liberal.

Under the best of circumstances, I don't really know how to gracefully disagree with someone. Seems like I either go way overboard and get defensive, or I don't say anything at all and feel regretful after the fact. This conference, in which we were being hosted because of an honor HB earned, could be considered the worst of circumstances.

For instance, we were making chit-chat with an industry person over cocktails at the big awards banquet. Industry Person would be presenting HB's award to him later in the program and HB has known him peripherally for many years and respects him. It was a time to play nice. It wasn't long before the conversation veered into dangerous territory, though.

Long story that I'm not going to get into but Industry Person shared his views on adoption. He said, "Adoption should only be allowed for married couples, and marriage should only be between a man and a woman. It's scary what's happening out there with gay marriage and all that stuff." Honey Bunny kind of grunted "hmmm", I kind of grunted "hmmm", and then we stole a "WTF?" glance at eachother. Then I took a page from my mother's book and mused about what the weather might be like tomorrow. Awkward!

I told this story to a gay friend earlier today and this friend is no longer speaking to me. Could be temporary, could be permanent... I never really know with this friend. But her point was that I should have said something to counter this guy's opinion because "I have lots of gay friends."

Moral of the story: don't talk to people about shit that you don't want to hear their opinions on. Seriously!

My personal opinion is that there's a time and a place to share your opinions and/or respond to other people's strong opinions. While I think it was totally distasteful for Industry Person to have voiced his opinion on gay marriage in that venue, just assuming we would share his opinion, I don't know that my opposing viewpoint would have done much more than put HB on edge on a very special night for him.

In my defense(iveness), what I wanted to say to Gay Friend is that sometimes you have to make sacrifices for your significant other, and that she doesn't understand that at this stage in her life because she has not yet been in a long-term significant relationship. When you're in a relationship, there are times you find yourself tripping out on something you've just done or said (or not done or not said, as the case may be) because in your single years you never would have dreamed of making a sacrifice like that for anyone. Maybe you'd watched a coupled friend make a decision you disagreed with and you vowed never to make that same mistake. But then you couple and you find yourself on the other side of the fence and you completely understand in retrospect why your friend made that decision. That's how long-term significantly coupled life has been for me, anyhow.

I won't say any of that to my gay friend, of course. I'm not gay, and further, I just got married. It's not my civil rights that were just trod upon. Ultimately, I understand her point about why I should have spoken up about my opinion on gay marriage to Industry Person. I don't like that she's chosen to not speak to me, but I do understand her reaction.

As a result, I keep thinking, Would I change how I responded to his comment in retrospect? If I could turn back time, probably... but only because I'm that person who can think of a million great witty/clever/barbed/whatever retorts to an insult if you give me 12 hours and a handful of Advil. (On the spot? Nope. See aforementioned paragraph re: best of circumstances.) But, then again, maybe I wouldn't.

Swagger

2008-11-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

For those of you who watched "America's Best Dance Crew, Season 2" on MTV, could the word "swagger" be any more overused in reference to Supreme Soul? (And, was Fanny Pak robbed or what??)

Supreme Soul got labeled early on as having mega-egos. Eh, don't you kinda have to have a mega-ego if you're going to compete on an MTV reality show? Especially in the genre of hip-hop dancing where contests are known as "battles"? Especially a crew who battled ABDC Season 1 winner, and my personal dance favorites, JabbaWockeeZ, and WON?

The reason I bring this up is because I was reading one of Honey Bunny's motorcycle magazines this morning and was lucky enough to come across Valentino Rossi news. (Yes, when I run out of new issues of US Weekly and InStyle, I turn to HB's moto rags for warmth and comfort.) There was some coverage of the Laguna Seca race of the MotoGP 2008 race series. Rossi won again, no surprise there. Casey Stoner (heh, his last name is Stoner!) still fighting for first. Nicky Hayden still fighting for... anything above 10th, really.

By the way, Nicky Hayden is to blame for this whole MotoGP and Valentino Rossi interest of mine. MTV produced a little documentary early this year called "The Kentucky Kid", all about Hayden's rise to a completely unexpected MotoGP Championship win in 2006, and his ensuing fall from grace in the 2007 race year. It was an interesting story, for sure, but mostly I realized that watching motorcycle racing, at least MotoGP racing, is like watching baseball. The action is slow but sure, slightly meditative, with some spine-tingling action along the way.

Mostly, though, I was captivated by Valentino Rossi. The guy has enough swagger to last about five million lifetimes, yet somehow he manages to still be likeable. This moto mag described him as "fun-loving imp" on the outside and "fiercest competitor ever" on the inside. Rossi is the guy at press conferences who puts his feet up on the table and leans his chair back on two legs, like he hasn't a care in the world. But surely, surely that hides the inner-workings of someone who is completely competent, completely focused and completely FULL of cares.

After the wedding, my friend's boyfriend told her that I was different than other fat girls he's met. He said, "All the zaftig chicks I've known have been loud, crass and full of swagger." He said that I, on the other hand, was reserved and classy. It's too bad he's never seen me in full swing because I'm pretty sure he'd be surprised, but it was nice to get that feedback nevertheless.

I've also known several zaftig sisters who were loud, crass and full of swagger. In fact, they comprise the majority, at least in my world. At work I have a cube neighbor who is an aspiring stand-up comedian. Sometimes for annual staff retreats, she gets talked into doing stand-up routines and they invariably land her in the CEO's office for a stern talking-to about cussing, vulgarity and the very public trashing of said CEO. I love that!

It's funny because there are a lot of people in this world who I find annoying based solely on the swagger they exhibit. Then there are others who I find interesting primarily because of their swagger. Here's how I separate it out in this crazy head of mine... If I think there is an unabashed mega-ego behind the swagger, then it can be acceptable (see: Rossi). If I think there is a vulnerable person underneath who is trying to artifically pump up his/her ego by blowing swagger smoke up my ass, then I find the person completely distasteful (see: Perez Hilton). If I think there is a vulnerable person underneath who is fighting for something more, then it's deserved (see: cube neighbor).

Critique

2008-10-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

Did I ever mention I post reviews on Burritophile? Well, apparently I haven't posted since January 2007... my, how time flies, as it seems like yesterday that I was working those reviews.

At any rate, a few days ago I decided to update one of my reviews after having a fairly bad burrito experience at one of my usual haunts. I updated it, then went through and looked at the other reviews I'd done and had a good laugh. Then I decided to see what other people had said after me about a couple places that I'd reviewed. Bad idea.

I'm being honest when I say I wasn't looking for reviews that referenced my reviews. Especially if one of my reviews were referenced in a negative way. And yet, there it was.

green67 said, "don't listen to the zaftig chick (it means she's "plump" and happy with it..until someone calls her f**)".

I admit I got lathered by it. Really, really lathered. Causing me to add a parenthetical counter-insult to my original review, which green67 will likely never read or see given that s/he hasn't posted for more than a year. Yet, it made me feel better.

And then... I thought about it all the way home from work. Things that put us in a tizzy are often the things that hit closest to home. Did green67 have a good point? Am I all for the Festively Plump cause until someone calls me "fat"?

Answer: yes and no.

My therapist and I were just talking about this blog, actually. She asked if I generally talk about the good things about being fat or the bad things. I told her that, originally, I wanted this blog to be positive about the fat experience but that (naturally) it evolved into being more neutral - and more honest. My mission lately has been to talk about the good, the bad and the BFD.

I reflected on this convo with Therapist when green67 rocked my world. Originally, yes, I was a plump gal who was trying to be happy about it ("until someone called me fat"). As a blogger, it didn't take long for that focus to run its course. There were many times I was dying to write about the bullshit... like wanting to go hiking with friends but being too embarassed by my lack of fitness, like enduring a monster truck-load of frat boys driving by yelling, "I wanna get a piece of you, pig!", like finding nothing pretty or interesting to wear to my company holiday party while my thinner coworkers were donning beautiful dresses by Ann Taylor, Max Azria, or, hell, even Issac Mizrahi for Target. Eventually I had to give in and talk about that stuff, because it is part - generally a very big part - of being fat.

Another thing I mused on was whether I could think of anyone who is genuinely happy about being plump, being called fat to her face or not. The only possible person I could think of is Mo'nique, but that's only because if someone called her fat she would probably barrage the person with an earful of insults to last a lifetime. That still doesn't mean she'd be ok with being called fat.

That brings me to my next point: being called fat vs. being mocked for being fat. There's a big difference. I may have mentioned this before but I previously worked with a therapist specializing in body image. She wanted me to take back the word "fat", likening it to when gay folk took back "fag" and "queer". She encouraged me to use and think of it as a descriptor rather than a slur. Once my "fat" paradigm shifted, being called fat no longer stung as bad. As in, I'd be walking down the street and pass a group of people and would hear someone say, "Did you see that fat chick?" Instead of wanting to run and hide in shame, I thought, "Yeah, I'm a fat chick. What of it?"

Speaking of which, let me take a moment to quote Digital Underground from the song "Humpty Dance":

Hey fat girl
Yeah, I called you fat
So I'm skinny,
That never stopped me from getting busy

It took me a long time to appreciate that, believe me, but I now I do. Not to mention, that song has a great bass riff.

Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is that being called fat in that manner is quite a bit different than being called a "pig" by the truckful of rednecks. If being called fat stings a bit, then being called pig is like taking a bullet to the chest. I find that kind of behavior inexcusable. I've said a lot of catty and shitty things about people in this lifetime - it's human nature - but at least I have enough respect for humanity to not speak crap like that to the person it's about (because it's not really even about them, y'know?), let alone yell it from the safety of a passing vehicle.

In the end, I stand by my counter-insult to green67:

"I'm a zaftig chick (yes, green67, that means I'm FAT - no asterisks necessary to soften the blow - but that in no way means I deserve to be mocked by you [a fellow reviewer] and especially not by people I'm paying my hard-earned dollars to for their food, you misanthropic, prejudiced fuckwad)"

ps. Saying something insulting to someone with no provocation = not cool. Saying something insulting to someone with provocation = my gloves come off. That's not model behavior, but it's who I am.

pss. In the interest of full disclosure, since I posted this yesterday I've thought of a few instances where I said something shitty to someone proactively. If only I could take each instance back now... I hate being a hypocrite.

Being The Bride

2008-10-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

Hello, dear readers. I'm back. The wedding festivities have concluded. And I'm still zaftig!

Being the center of attention during All Things Wedding was pretty challenging. I think my Bitter Bridezilla post was really about feeling exposed, and whether or not I was acting or feeling like a bridezilla was beside the point.

Not to be all sob story but, growing up fat was pretty shitty. Right out of the gate I was set aside as "different" from everyone else and picked on relentlessly. Only made worse by the fact that I was also a totally weird kid. I mean, did you know anyone in grade school who would electively wear a homemade pirate shirt with homemade khaki canvas bloomers and a newsboy cap? Not on Halloween? Because they loved "Voyagers!" that much? [Sidenote: Jon-Erik Hexum was a total babe.] Folks, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

I was always torn in two directions... to be or not to be the center of attention. The fat kid in me wanted to hide at all costs. The weird kid in me wanted to boogie in the spotlight. The normal kid in me didn't want to be picked on for being fat or weird, she just wanted to belong.

Fast forward to Summer 2008. I had almost a year ramping up to being The Bride, littered with sleepless nights and the occasional panic attack. I always thought getting married was the thing scaring the crap out of me, and it was, but only to a certain extent. Now, after the fact, I can see I was mostly having a similar tug-o-war to the aforementioned youthful one.

The fat part of me was scared shitless to be so exposed, to be The Bride, to wear a wedding dress, to have to walk up and down the aisle in front of everyone, to be the guest of honor at three different parties, and the co-host and co-center of attention at the biggest party of all. I'm not just talking about the literal fat part of me. The emotions that come up around being The Bride after hiding and covering up for 30 odd years... that isn't just about the fat on my body. That's the mind-fuck of having been fat for a very long time. Some would even say it's the reason I'm fat to begin with (which, FYI, I'm not so quick to disagree with these days).

The fat part of me had no idea how to pick a dress, despite the fact that I love fashion and especially big fancy dresses and know, more or less, how to dress my body. Hey, remember my posts about picking the dress? Where do you think that came from? Fight, flight or freeze... I chose freeze but tried to make the best of it with whimsy.

Trying to lose weight before and for the wedding was, as my therapist often said, probably adding way too much to my already over-flowing plate. People are fat or get fat for a reason, in my opinion. It's either in a person's genetic makeup or it's a coping mechanism, and sometimes it's both. I put myself in the both category. I come from a long line of women who have giant boobs, prolific bellies and flat asses. I also come from a family with some issues, and eating through house and home was the way I dealt with it (along with being sedentary). Trying to undo all those issues and fight genetics in a 9-month period, in the midst of regular life and preparing for a wedding, was an exercise in futility. If I could do it all over again, I would still work with my personal trainer twice a week but I would have revamped my goal. Instead of it being all for the wedding, it was simply a good and solid starting point for a lifelong change in my health.

In terms of the weird part of me... I wanted to wear a big crazy stylish dress with big crazy stylish accessories amidst a big crazy stylish wedding. The weird part of me got excited at the prospect of walking down the aisle looking fab. Well, thankfully in the end we did not have a big crazy stylish wedding, despite a lot of hand-wringing on my part to make one happen. We had a down-scale and quirky wedding, which is perfect because that's who we are.

The thing that perplexes me is that being The Bride was hardest in the couple months preceding the wedding, and was not hard at all on wedding day. Being The Bride is just a set of expectations I had for myself, or rather put on myself. I always thought The Bride was lovely and glowing because she was so in love, happy, thin, beautiful, nicely dressed, reveling in being the center of attention. Given what I've written so far, can you imagine a worse scenario for my fat ego? Not to mention that when you're in your 30's, have a full time job, are paying for and coordinating your own DIY wedding, things are a little different. Yeah, I was definitely glowing because I was in love... but also because I was sweating profusely while setting up flower arrangements and rented tables and chairs in my reception hall!

Sorry, tangent. What I'm trying to say is that I had an unreasonable set of expectations for being The Bride and it made me totally miserable. I don't actually think those expectations had much or anything to do with a lifetime of fatness. I think the idea of what a bride is supposed to look and act like, leading up to and including the wedding, is ingrained in our culture.

And, all expectations aside, I had a really hard time being the guest of honor when all I'd done was fall in love and decide to get married. When I graduated from college -- dude, I loved that party because my degree was hard-earned. If I ever show a collection of my best photographs or design work -- you know I will bust out the AmEx and the champers to fete that shit with my posse. But, getting married? Seriously? I just felt kind of... lame... at the shower, bachelorette and rehearsal parties.

Wedding day, that was different. Being The Bride was natural on wedding day, genuine and not forced in any way. I forgot that I was fat and just lived and experienced, and that's the way it should be every day.

Just call me Bitter Bridezilla

2008-07-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard this wonderful little term of endearment, "bridezilla" is defined as:

"A bride-to-be who focuses so much on the event that she becomes difficult and obnoxious."

Apparently I am one. Because I reminded our caterer that we hadn't yet gotten the quote and contract (that she said she'd give me 2 months ago). Because I want to choose both a silk flower for my hair and a long necklace to wear with my wedding dress. Because I've chosen to buy mismatched champagne glasses from Goodwill instead of renting matchy-matchy ones from a party rental company. Because I said I wasn't feeling the stringy, wet 80's look my hair had (as opposed to the soft shiny wave I asked for) when my stylist did "practice hair" last night. Because my florist didn't return my call for a week.

Yes, I want things to look a certain way and run smoothly on my wedding day, but I'm not expecting perfection by any means. Mostly, yes, I'd like people who I'm paying good money to to actually respond to me in a timely manner and to fully commit to their services so I don't have to scramble at the last minute to find new vendors. But no, I have not been a bitch or demanding to anyone. I feel I've overall been pretty darn kind and patient.

With one exception. It was after a really long day of bridesmaid dress shopping, without lunch, to my non-pregnant sister when she wanted to choose a frumpy shit-brown maternity dress to wear for the wedding above all the other actually pretty dresses she tried on. I had a bitchy moment, yes, and I own that.

The point I'm trying to make is that this "bridezilla" stereotype is so prevalent now that no matter what you do, or how nice you act, you get the bridezilla label if you're a bride. Especially if your salary precludes you from hiring a $20,000 wedding planner, and you have to be a DIY bride.

Case in point: I am an events coordinator for a living. I talk to venues and caterers and vendors all the time! Never once have any of those sales reps acted like I was being bitchy or demanding when I've asked to change a floor plan at the last minute, or tweak a menu. That's just what professional vendors expect in business. Plans change. But if you're a bride, then you better keep your damn mouth shut.

Harrumph.

PS. That show "Bridezillas" on WE? I never really liked it to begin with, but just recently I realized how racist, classist, exploitative, and really un-funny it is.

Get a load of...

2008-06-13T10:51:00.001-07:00

... this article.

I'm at work otherwise I'd write a little tirade.

And ps. I'm sorry I haven't written in so so so long. Been hella busy with wedding stuff, work and staying well.

An experience with appetite loss

2008-02-21T12:52:00.000-08:00

You know from my last post that I have been dealing with anxiety. It took a long time, but I finally decided to try Lexapro for it, and I had a pretty interesting experience. And yes, this does relate to The Fat Life... hang in there.

Back in the early 2000's, I was on Paxil for a year and a half for severe depression. The meds helped tremendously and I got my life back on track, and consistently gaining 5 lbs a month and almost losing my job because I loved sleep so much was worth it. Then I decided to go off the meds. And by "go off the meds", what I really mean is "suffered through six weeks of withdrawl hell."

Deciding to go on meds this time was more complicated. Taking an SSRI drug is a commitment, and I knew that fully this time around. I really didn't want to go on them but nevertheless got a presciption from the doctor and filled it. Then I let the bottle sit in my bedside stand for about a month while I thought about it. One day, after not sleeping well or at all for the previous four nights, I decided it was time.

Unfortunately, starting the meds also coincided with my getting the flu. As I laid on my sofa with a 101 degree fever for five days, I figured the unquenchable thirst, the dizziness, the wired mind, the nausea (and various other symptoms of an upset digestive tract, ahem), the not being able to sleep well, and worst of all, the unrelenting loss of appetite, was all flu related. But then again... save for some dizziness and strange sleep/dreams -- and nausea when it was stomach flu specifically -- I'd never really had those symptoms with the flu. Hmm.

I thought maybe the wired mind and lack of hunger was coming from the decongestant I was taking without eating much to compensate, yet every time I tried to make myself eat I felt like barfing. I decided to lay off the decongestant for 24 hours to get my body back on track, but it didn't help. Looking at, smelling, and/or thinking of food made me cringe.

Finally the flu left, yet the symptoms I noted above didn't. If anything, certain symptoms got worse. I was thirsty constantly, no matter how much water I drank. (Thirst like you've just worked out really hard after eating a super salty meal, and your lips are all dry, and you feel desperate to drink something, anything, you can get yours hands on.) But most notably the loss of appetite did not leave.

Honey Bunny's mom has told me a few times now about how, when her daughter died, she considered it a "gift" from her deceased daughter that she lost 20 lbs and could barely eat. I always think, Excuse me, you think it's a gift that you were so grief-stricken that you barely ate for three months? And, I have a few female coworkers who will share stories in the lunchroom of epic stomach bugs... the kind that helped them drop 5-10 lbs and/or toned their abs "without any effort whatsoever". Huh?

One of those coworkers used to be a RN and is now a trusted colleague and occasional advice nurse for me. I consulted with her about the side effects I was dealing with and I should not have been at all shocked when she said the following:

"Think of the appetite suppression as a gift from the universe! It won't last forever but in the meantime use it to kick-start a new era of health in your life. The human body can go for days without food. Just make sure you drink something with lots of vitamins, like those Nutrisystem shakes."

Okaaaaaaay. Still a trusted colleague, but probably no longer my occasional advice nurse. I might mention that she also said, during this same conversation, "When I went on anti-depressants after my son died, I actually asked for Wellbutrin specifically because it's also a weight loss drug."

Perhaps it's of note that these women are all over the age of 50. I've noticed that women of a certain age tend to think of weight loss as a permanent and, to some extent, unattainable goal. And no wonder... they've been hammered with messages from the media and society about weight loss at any cost for at least half a century.

I hung in there for as long as I could with the Lexapro but did decide to quit (for the side effects and other reasons unexplained here). After two days of no meds, I pulled my requisite yogurt and flax seed oil out of the fridge for breakfast and thought, Hey, the thought of eating this doesn't make me want to hurl, hooray!

I've dealt with loss of appetite before, like when my sister died. It was different. Food tasted like cardboard but I knew I had to eat something in order to keep going in life and that was ok with my body. Forcing myself to eat and then forcing myself to not vomit afterwards was a whole different ballgame. It was literally disturbing to me. It felt like anything but "healthy" and certainly didn't feel like a "gift".

Also, I could not stop pondering what would happen after the loss of appetite subsided, or what would happen after I went off the drug. What if I lost weight because of the drug, and then it all came back after the effect or drug left my system? How healthy is that? Sorry to be old school here, but in my opinion, and at least for people who are still mobile, there is really only one truly natural and effective manner in which to lose weight and it involves dealing with your diet and exercise habits sans pharmaceuticals or surgery.

PS. Good lord, I just noticed how many times I referenced deaths of loved ones in this post.

Interesting

2008-01-25T17:22:00.000-08:00

People, I'm gonna let it all hang out because I'm a fat person and sometimes that can make life complicated.

I've been experiencing hella anxiety for the past few months and have been trying to both keep it in check and examine it. One way I've done this is to get back into therapy, which has been really challenging in itself because finding a therapist you like and groove with is like trying to find the love of your life. It doesn't happen easily or often and, believe me, a shitty therapist can ruin your whole day. But, I digress.

So I'm sitting with my therapist this past week and we're creating a timeline of when I have had anxiety attacks, and how that may or may not dovetail with wedding planning, marriage planning, work crises, intense doctor visits, personal training, etc. Imagine my surprise when she says, "You know what? I think your anxiety is partially linked to working with a trainer to lose weight."

Um, what?

I'm anxious because I'm trying to lose weight? Don't most people get anxious because they are gaining it? Sure, it makes a lot of sense that I'd have "feelings" about this stuff -- I've written about it in past posts -- but I didn't realize it would inspire anxiety attacks and insomnia.

Huh. Weird! I felt relieved but, yet, more anxious.

How many times in my 35 years have I heard, "fat is emotional protection from the world"? About a zillion. I've always thought that was a load of crap because if you've ever been the fat kid in school, your fat is likely anything BUT protection. It can be a painfully obvious target for cruel people. In college I once wrote a story likening fat people to the heyoka in Lakota culture. We are unwilling clowns, symbolizing something that our society cannot easily define, deal with or face, and thus we are subjected to ridicule.

My therapist will probably bring up this point, that maybe I have been fat for my whole life because I need to self-protect. You know, I can actually buy into that now that I'm older. (But, ps, I will never accept this theory as the reason, the only reason, why someone might be fat.) More than anything, I would love a definition as to what self-protection really is. From what? From who? And why?

It's a curious thing.

The Queen, causing a rant

2008-01-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

Get this... Queen Latifah is now shilling Jenny Craig, on the basis of being a role model for good health. Does this mean we're going to watch her whittle down, purportedly only by 10%, over the next few months? That's what her "blog" (read: ghost written piece of crap marketing material) says on the JC* website.

For starters, I find this pretty disappointing because Queen Latifah has always been a Hollywood figure I've admired. She's not really that big except in comparison to other actresses, and she's always seemed unapologetic about her size. So why now? Why Jenny Craig? Not to be bitchy, but JC is something I would expect from Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertinelli. Queen Latifah, no.

In general I have a big problem with weight loss plans that have you buying and eating the plan's own fake food. If health is what you're after, then I'm not sure that pre-made (frozen?) dinners really suit the bill. Not to mention that after you lose all that weight you want to lose... are you supposed to keep buying their food or do you venture out on your own? And if you venture out on your own, then are you counseled on how to choose and/or cook your own food? I honestly have no idea how that company works because you have to call a "Jenny Direct Consultant" to find out. (No thanks.) (Barf.)

*****
Let me take this moment to tell you about a conversation with my mom on Christmas day, and it'll put into perspective why Queen Latifah and her no-doubt lucrative Jenny Craig deal make for a particularly painful and personal titty twister. My mom actually asked me if I'd ever thought of trying JC "because those actresses have all lost a lot of weight on that plan." This is after I told her I'd been seeing a personal trainer who was helping me with both exercise and diet. Her reply to that was, "But you've been working with him for six weeks and you haven't really lost much weight."

I had a two-pronged reaction. First of all, the obvious... a lot of anger that I've endured a lifetime of hearing shit like that come out of both of my parents' mouths, that small progress is not progress enough, so on and so forth. At 35 years of age, I can forgive my mom just a little for saying something about my weight because she's worried I'm going to die just like my sister did (at 42 of a massive heart attack after having diabetes for years), and no parent wants to see that happen twice. That doesn't make this little conversation any less complicated or painful, however.

This seems to be a very common theme among mothers and daughters. Women's bodies are scrutinized to death (sometimes literally) in our culture, whether you're fat or thin, tall or short, curvy or straight, whatever. We're all fighting a war that has been more or less created by marketing, by companies trying to make money off of people who are in a vulnerable state of mind. And that brings me perfectly to my next point.

Naivety in adults. I can't stand it. (You'll have to excuse me because I've watched The X Files movie and several episodes of The Prisoner in the past week, and if that doesn't make you paranoid about the government, about power and money, who has access and who doesn't, I'm not sure what will.)

It is so important for us to question... question what we are constantly being spoon-fed by advertisements that are literally everywhere you look, question why there are candy bars next to Shape magazine at checkout stations at the grocery store, question why we pay more attention to celebrities than to what's going on in the world, and yes, question all those little messages that we got from our parents. You have to be brave enough to find your own truths in this culture. Some of us have that drive innately and some don't. I don't, and so it's always a struggle to right myself when I've been tipped off balance.

In truth, my mom absolutely did tip me off balance. I returned home from Christmas and thought, "You know, maybe she's right. Maybe I'm not losing enough weight seeing this personal trainer." This flies in the face of the very thing my trainer told me, that I should look at no more than 2-3 lbs. lost per month, to make sure my emotions and mind are in sync with what's happening with my body, to make sure it's really what I want. It took a long time to right myself on this point and in some ways, I'm still working through it.

* = Funny how Jenny Craig's initials are "JC". Like, Jesus Christ. Coincidence? Hey, I'm just saying...

Motivation & contemplation

2007-12-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling a little self-conscious about my wedding dress posts (or, conversely, that I haven't posted anything else of real significance). I kept/keep going back and forth about whether those posts really relate to the general theme of the blog, but in the end I feel they really do. It's been pretty darn frustrating being a zaftig woman preparing for her wedding. You're supposed to look and feel great on your wedding day, and that includes dressing the part.

I decided early on that I didn't want an actual wedding dress and instead would opt for a floor-length bridesmaid dress. To those who have never shopped first-hand for either, that means I'll spend around $290 while someone who chooses an actual bridal dress will pay an average of $1000. Either way I still cannot believe that women who are above a certain size are expected to slap down cold, hard, final sale cash for a dress that they can't try on until it's delivered to them. Excuse my french, but it fucking boggles my mind how this can be so. And, I personally cannot pull the trigger, no matter how hard I try. I'm basically paralyzed over this decision, and my budget is "only" $350.

The other issue I've been grappling with is that the dress line I've been wanting to purchase from only goes up to size 24. Did I mention that conventional theory is that bridal and bridesmaid dresses are actually two sizes smaller than the tag reads? I'm currently a 26, meaning I would have to lose two sizes (by Feb 1st, to allow for production time) in order to fit into their 24.

So, I decided to get a personal trainer to lose those two sizes. After five weeks, I felt a million times better and stronger health-wise, but didn't have much weight loss to show for it. After much reflection, I decided that I needed a dress line that goes up to 28, and pretty much all but the dress line I mentioned above do this. I felt a lot better, a lot less anxious. I told my trainer about my decision and he was really happy. He said he wants me to be happy and healthy on my wedding day, no matter what size I am. Me, I ultimately felt it was very shallow motivation to lose weight for one dress and one day of my life.

The truth is, though, that I would like to lose weight - not just for that day, but in general - and I feel guilty about it. Part of my identity is being a zaftig chick with in interest in the social issue of fat acceptance. No one should have to lose weight in order to be happy, so why lose weight at all? Right? Well, then, why do I want to lose weight? And if I do end up losing weight, does that make me a total hypocrite? These are questions I've been pondering for seven weeks now, and make the process of personal training, losing weight, and finding motivation a lot more difficult than it already is.

The weirdest thing was when my trainer asked me what my goals were. I said, "to be healthier and stronger and hopefully to lose some weight." He replied, "'hopefully' or 'actually' lose some weight? Because I don't know that middle-ground is really going to work for you in this instance." And, he's right. Lucky for me, he's not the run of the mill gym rat trainer. He's a yoga practitioner who only trains "in the world" (meaning that we do cardio training in his quiet and hilly residential neighborhood) and in the small yoga studio in his house. I can only assume he would swap the word "motivation" for "intent", and I try to keep that in mind. Sometimes "motivation" can be a tool that I use against myself, in lots of ways.

By the way, when I picture myself as less than a size 26, I don't go too far. I fluctuated between sizes 18-22 for a really long time and I think that's where my body and I are happiest, the most balanced. My therapist used to say this... I don't think I'd be the same person if I was much less than that. Being zaftig is part of who I am.

Help me decide, Part 3

2007-12-09T12:11:00.001-08:00

Sorry, just one more possible wedding dress before I resume regular posting on this blog!

What do you think of this one? I'm not super stoked on the rhinestones but I could make them work. I just think it's a cute dress and would look cute on me.

Help me decide, Part 2

2007-11-07T13:31:00.000-08:00

A hearty THANK YOU to the folks who posted comments on my previous post - very helpful! But, eh, can I throw another dress into the mix?

I found this one completely by accident. I was perusing the Real Weddings page on the Watters website, and came across pics of bridesmaids from Erin's wedding.

See the woman on the far left? She is by no means zaftig but does have more padded features than the other ladies pictured. I think Wtoo #532 might do a zaftig chick justice. And yes, I would get it in floor length and perhaps in Sky Blue.

Likey?

Help me decide

2007-10-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

This is slightly off the topic, but I'm having one hell of a time trying to decide what wedding dress to wear. Want to help point me in the right direction?

First off, you should know that I'm not going to be a traditional bride. For almost my whole life, I've known that I want a dress that either has strong color accents on it, or is itself a color other than white or ivory. If the right dress was more lovely in white or ivory, I'd do it, but for now I'm really feeling like having a dress in color. I think I'd rather look like I was walking down the red carpet than down the aisle.

Also, please note that I will not be wearing a veil, but will have my freshly red longish hair down and curled with stephanotis blossoms dotted in it. (An idea totally ripped from the last scenes of "Wedding Crashers", Isla Fisher's hair.) And of course, most importantly, I'm a zaftig chick. It's hard to pick a dress when they're all shown on non-zaftig models.

Here are my top choices:

This one from Sydney's Closet in Periwinkle or Burgundy. (Note that color swatches on this website are about 1-2 shades darker than they are in person.) Periwinkle, which is close to one of the colors for the wedding, would be a take on a more traditionally light-colored dress but it's still a color and I love love love pretty much any shade of blue. Burgundy is strong and would be a statement. My mother will probably have a hissy, but it's my wedding and I'll be the scarlet woman if I want to.

This one, also from Sydney's Closet, in Capri or Heather. Capri is one of the most beautiful blues I've ever seen. Heather is just plain pretty, and I've always loved shades of purple.

And lastly, this one from Wtoo. No freakin clue what color because I haven't seen the color swatches in person yet.

Post a comment if you've got an opinion!

Kick-ass jeans

2007-10-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Lane Bryant may be cancelling their bridal line, starting with the dress I wanted to wear for my wedding next year (le sigh)... but I have to say I'm digging this Right Fit thing!

Firmly in Yellow territory [straight from waist to hip], LB's previous lines of jeans - which their marketing says was based on the Blue model [curvy from waist to hip] - never really fit me in the way that I'd hoped for. In fact, I do believe there are previous posts on this blog ranting about how jeans often look like riding jodphers on me.

(FYI - there is a third color/type. LB split the difference between Yellow and Blue, to create Red, which is moderately curvy from waist to hip.)

Right Fit Yellow's are so snugly fitting around my hips that at first I didn't know what to do with myself. After a couple years enduring quasi-jodphers, correctly fitting jeans looked downright weird on my body. You could even say... flattering. Seriously? Seriously! Gasp.

LB not only has their standard jean collection (Classic, Bootcut, Flare) in Right Fit, but also offers their universal work pant, the Houston. I got a pair in the mail yesterday and almost started to cry - in the good way. Do you know how many times I've put on work pants and started to cry tears of frustration and defeat? I don't need to mimic thin girls in their perfectly fitting, perfectly pressed, wide-leg trousers from Express, but I would rather die than show up to work in the equivalent of too short, pleated-waist, peg-legged rayon pants. I don't care if the tag says "has flared leg", there's something about my body that has always made work pants look peg-legged on me.

If you're wanting to buy Right Fit online because there are no LB stores in your neck of the woods, here are a few tips. Firstly, lengths are a little funky. I have the Petite Bootcut and Flare which both ran longer than past Petite models at LB. If you're generally halfway between a Petite and Average (like me!), go with the Petite and it'll be perfect. However, the Petite Houstons I bought were way shorter than any Petite jean or pant I've ever tried at LB. So, go with Average unless you usually have to get your Petites hemmed.

Second, and this isn't specific to LB or Right Fit, I find that Bootcut is now more Straight Leg, and Flare is like a fuller version of Bootcut. I put my Bootcuts on and, being a tried and true fan of Flares, really had to spend some time getting used to how they looked, especially with some of my tops and shoes. If you're a "true" Bootcut fan, I would recommend going for the Flare instead.

And lastly, I found that the fabrics between Bootcut and Flare were very different. Flare in Blue/Black Denim has a much thinner and stretchier texture, and I find them very comfy for moving around in. Bootcut in Dark Rinse Denim has a really lovely polished texture, so much so that they could be substituted for khakis at work. Sorry to say but I haven't investigated the lighter finishes since I'm always scouting for nicer denim for work purposes.

Go forth and conquer the denim world!

ps. Sorry for not writing for so long... I promise to post more often!

Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance

2007-08-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Ever heard of a little show on Oxygen called "Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance"? Apparently it's been on once per year for three years now, but I only just heard of it. It's basically a fat girl beauty pageant, which is cool in and of itself. Recently I watched a rerun of the 2006 version, and also this year's, which took place in Paris, France. I thought I'd love it, but didn't.

What I did like was the lead-up to the pageant. On the 2006 show, Mo'Nique took the pageant contestants horse back riding. One of the women was freaked out, presumably because it was her first time on a horse and because she felt like she'd break its back under her weight. Mo'Nique soothed the woman in part by saying, "It's okay, baby. I'm trying to change the way fat girls live." Meaning, presumably, that fat women generally do not horse back ride or even entertain the notion of horse back riding. Hell, I rode horses as a kid but as a fat adult, I'd certainly have some hesitations and breaking the horse's back would be one of them.

On the 2007 show, Mo'Nique had her contestants - and herself - painted in full body makeup and then pose nude (except for a thong) for pictures. It was a cool idea, and fun to see Mo'Nique in full glory as well. I liked that fat bodies were shown on TV, and NOT because they were getting weighed in for a weight loss reality show or some shit like that. I also liked that the contestant who won the competition was the one most eager to participate in the nude exercise.

In terms of the actual pageant I liked the 2007 version better, in which the contestants wore high fashion clothing and paraded down a runway, similar to a fashion show. The fashions were - gasp! - similar to what thin women wear, and I appreciated that. The judges all sat down together afterwards and chatted to decide a winner.

In 2006, it was literally like a beauty pageant, in which there were different categories that contestants were judged on, including the heinous question and answer portion. I thought the clothes the contestants wore were pretty icksville for the most part. They vacillated from the typical big flowy loose shirt over tight-ish jeans to so skin-tight that you could see everyone's lumps and bumps. Now, fat women have lumps and bumps and hiding them should not be a necessity but did they have to go all the way to the other end of the spectrum, to evening dresses that were practically painted on?

Like I said, I didn't love it... but only because I was so excited when I first heard of the show and the reality of it knocked the wind out of my sails. If any of you have seen it, I'd love to know what you thought.

ps. I just read a little feature about Mo'Nique in People (the one with Katie Holmes on the cover), and it was pretty good! She's such an interesting person. Mo'Nique, I dig you!

Virtual Garage Sale - Plus Size Clothing

2007-07-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

I cleaned out my closet today and instead of chucking everything into a box for Goodwill, I pulled out a few nice items for a "virtual garage sale".

Here are pics.

Everything is FREE... I just wanna give stuff a good home. If you live outside the Bay Area, I'll ship stuff to you but please be willing to reimburse me for shipping cost. If you live in the Bay Area, I'm sure we can work out a drop off/pick up arrangement.

Let me know if you're interested in anything - just drop me a comment!

XOXO,
Zaftig Girl

Thin

2007-06-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Since Monday night, when I watched Lauren Greenfield's documentary Thin, my mind and heart have been heavy. I can't stop thinking about the characters and their heartbreaking stories. I can't stop thinking about eating disorders, body image and mental health, and how those things relate to my life and my struggle with being fat.

I was relieved today to read the following on Greenfield's website, which states what I've desperately been trying to summarize in my head for the past four days.

"[Eating disorders] are not simply about food or body image or self-esteem, but a tangle of personal, familial, cultural and mental health issues."

The film captures this notion without handing it to you on a silver platter, which I'm sure is why I struggled with a definition. It's also why I think it's a great documentary.

Do watch it if you get a chance. If nothing else, check out Greenfield's website. She produced a book of photography in conjunction with the film, and she has a small portfolio of those photographs posted.

Size-positive dancing = fun

2007-04-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be cool if there were a fat version of the Pussycat Dolls? I'm fully sucked in to Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, eventhough I don't actually like the Pussycat Dolls (the girl group version anyhow, whereas the original burlesque stage show was cool). It's good times watching the contestants develop the songs and dances they're assigned to each week.

San Francisco, CA, and Boston, MA, actually do have hip-hop dance troupes for fat girls, known as the Phat Fly Girls. I heard about them several years ago and it looks like Big Moves has since added a modern dance troupe, called Mass Movement. Cool!

A couple years ago I was stopped on my way out of a restaurant by two zaftig women asking if I was interested in doing burlesque. They said they thought I had a good look for it and gave me their (post)card, for Big Burlesque. Aww!

And who the heck isn't charmed by The Devil-ettes? Most of their dancers are not zaftig, but they're a size-positive troupe in general. They're actually auditioning right now, if you're interested! Here's page, if you're interested.

Lastly, an honorable mention to The Cock-T's, who I found out about via the Devil-ette's MySpace profile. They don't purport to be size-positive or anything... they just look like they're having a good time.

Pigs, fat or not

2007-03-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Koly and her theatre company just finished a local run of the new-ish Broadway play, Fat Pig. She played Helen, the lead female, the "fat pig". She was great!

Fat Pig is about Helen meeting a conservative Wall Street broker type, Tom, who is into her but has a hard time admitting it to his shallow friends. When he does, he gets the standard frat boy reaming but sticks to his guns and defends his attraction to Helen. While they're happy together, she eventually has to confront him about having never met or hung out with his friends, and about how he always wants to stay in rather than go out on the town (subtext: and be seen with her). Tom assuages her fears but shortly thereafter realizes he can't stand up to the mocking of his friends or his own ability to be okay with dating a fat chick. The final scene of the play, in which he breaks up with her at his company picnic, is meant to say that she might be a pig in body but he's a pig at heart. Helen is, of course, heart broken and breaks down in tears.

I'd heard quite a bit about the play when it first came out on Broadway, because cute-but-zaftig-no-longer Sara Rue premiered the part of Helen. In fact, if you click the above link for her IMDB profile, you'll see just how not-fat she is now. And while you're there, get a load of the Message Boards at the bottom of the page. Gotta love the first message entitled, "WOW! She got hot!" Whatever, pig. Girl looks like she's starving now. It's unfortunate because I thought she was absolutely gorgeous as a zaftig redhead.

Given all I'd heard about the play, I didn't think it would be startling. Little did I know the shock and horror would creep up on me in the days after I saw it. The more I thought about it, the more Helen reminded me of myself at a very weak point in my life, when I had a crushing crush on a coworker who would only show me attention, some of it sexual in nature, when we were alone together.

Helen is supposed to be "bright, funny and sexy". I certainly tried to be those things for my coworker crush, but felt completely adrift and worthless on the inside. I'm always suspicious of male writers writing about female characters, but doubly so here. I wondered if the author, Neil LaBute, really knew where to go with Helen. I kept thinking, "if she's so bright, funny and sexy, then why doesn't she dump his ass?" Well, for the same reason I refused to kick my coworker habit. Inside Helen is some sort of struggle between self worth and wanting to be loved, and as a human, fat or not, it's not too hard to infer that. I kinda wish LaBute would have chosen to convey that struggle rather than Helen being a sexy confident woman out of the starting gates only to metamorphize into a heartbroken mess at the finish line, with very little grey area in between.

Doesn't sound like it but I'm commending Neil LaBute and the script, actually. IMHO, good art is provacative and opaque, and has you thinking about it, decoding, well after you've encountered it. Fat Pig stands up to my definition and then some. The only reason the lack of transparency around Helen's internal struggle irks me is because it's too real. I know a lot of strong and confident women, but they aren't necessarily strong and confident in every aspect of their lives, and in most cases they fear admitting that. There's no reason Helen is any different just because she's fat. In media, fat people are often portrayed as vulnerable just by virtue of being fat, so it's actually kind of refreshing that Helen came off as armoured.

On a completely different note, I had a funny moment during the play. To my horror, Koly utilized a sundress I bought in 1997 to portray Helen in the company picnic scene. I bought it online from a former zaftig MTV VJ who had a small line of plus-size clothing, and whose name I can't remember for the life of me. (Abby something?) I coveted that dress for about a year before I could afford it. It was like $75 without shipping/handling! When the package finally arrived, I tore it open and tried on the dress... and it was the most heinous piece of crap I've put on my body to this day. The print was fierce, two little red cherries on a green stem, set against a white background. The cut was disasterous. I can't even describe it to you or else I'll go into convulsions. In fact, when I saw it on stage, I had to avert my eyes. When we greeted Koly after the show, she did the Church Lady dance and said in mocking tone, "Remember this dress?"

It's an evening, and a dress, I won't forget for a long time.

Hair powder: wow!

2007-03-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

[Preface: I'm posting this because hair issues are universal. Or maybe I just want to shout from yet another rooftop because my enthusiam knows no boundaries.]

Omigawd, who the hell knew that hair powder actually worked? Bumble and bumble, I love you! More than usual! Which is saying a lot, actually, given that I use approximately eight of your hair products on a regular basis!

I used it for the first time this morning, when I was running too late to work to be able to condition and blow-dry effectively. It comes out in a blast so strong that I thought the stream of powder was going to bore through my scalp. Note to self: take their clever instruction of "Keep your distance! 10-12 inches at least!" seriously.

After a thorough spritz on the greasiest portions of my hair, I brushed it through and VOILA! My hair looked clean once again. In fact, maybe I will never wash my head again.

Not only does it dry cleanse, but it creates a bit 'o' volume on fine hair due to the added texture, and apparently you can also use it for "no slip updo's".

Bumble and bumble hair powder, you are my bitch lover.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

On being attractive

2007-01-24T18:16:00.000-08:00

Spring semester just started at the college campus where I've worked for seven years, and prior to that attended for five. When I was single, I was always eager to check out the new crop of guys at the start of each semester. I'm coupled now and it takes a pretty special and/or hot guy to catch my eye, but I still scan. I admit it.

As I was cruising through the hallway to the restroom this afternoon, I saw a chubby schlubby indie guy talking to an obviously pretty indie girl. I was flooded with memories of pursuing that kind of dude when I was single. I always liked the obviously cute indie guys, but I pursued the chubby schlubby ones because I thought I had more of a chance. The cruel truth was that I had as little or even less of a chance than I did with the obviously cute variety. That took years to figure out. In fact, when I wrote my personal ad for Craigslist, the one that led me to Honey Bunny, I had a very hard time deciding whether to add "cute" to the list of traits I was looking for in a guy. Mostly, I felt like I didn't deserve to have "cute". Thankfully, in the end, I did include it. (Honey Bunny is hella cute!)

This "cute" thing is all about self worth. I had to feel worthy of being someone's mate in order to actually get one, and part of feeling worthy is feeling attractive. There were plenty of times when I didn't respond to personal ads that I liked, based only on the advertiser saying he was seeking someone pretty/cute/beautiful/whatever. Depending on my mood, I either thought I wasn't pretty enough, or I thought the guy was an asshole for even mentioning that he was seeking someone attractive.

Well, I was projecting when I wrote my personal ad. I didn't feel it was fair to ask for "cute" of potential suitors. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that being attractive isn't just about physical attributes. It's largely about a state of mind, how you feel about yourself.

In the end, I included "cute" because I decided to own my own cuteness, and because I was finally able to admit that I wanted a cute boyfriend, and most importantly because I wanted a mate that felt good about himself. People of all shapes and sizes are able to feel good about themselves, and "cute" is totally subjective.

Back to Mister Chubby Schlubb (MCS)... not the guy in the hallway, but the entire genre. In retrospect, I see that those dudes either felt good about themselves and/or they didn't let the "Is she out of my league?" question plague them, and so they pursued the pretty girl. Nothing wrong with that, except that at the time it felt like some heinous joke the universe was playing on me. I thought of myself as Ms. Chubby Schlubb, thereby obliterating my chances with pretty much everyone. In retrospect, I just wish that I'd been more like the MCS's and had the worth and the nerve to pursue guys I actually found attractive -- whether they were rail thin, chubby, or whatever.

HI, Part 2 & an exciting new discovery

2006-12-30T00:18:00.000-08:00

I had this brainstorm the other day, and decided to call the airline (for my trip to HI) about finding a comfy seat on the plane. I said, "I'm a large person and was wondering if there are any seats on the plane that are more accommodating." The phone rep didn't seem to bat an eyelash at the request and said, "Sure, let me check out the seating arrangement on your plane."

Of course in the fantasy version of this scenario the rep then says, "Actually, First Class is underbooked so I'll upgrade you at no extra charge." Heh.

I was so jazzed to hear him say we're reserved, both ways, on a row with just an aisle and a window seat, and that the row has a little extra leg room. Woo hoo! Then I looked up the floor plan on the carrier's website and was surprised to see that, on this particular jet, Coach rows are laid out in a 2 - 3 - 2 pattern. It detracted slightly from the "excellent score" aspect -- but seriously, it takes away like 50% of my anxiety about this trip to know I won't be squishing anyone and that I won't be squished. The other 50% of the anxiety I can deal with now that the burden ain't so heavy. It's all good. Aloha nui nui!

UPDATE: 1/24/07
I had a helluva lot more to worry about than being fat on this trip. Such as: major family drama, major family reconciliation, the flu, coughing so hard as result of the flu that I vomited, ensuing ear infections from the flu, and a freaky flight home.

But, I had the best ice cream cone in the entire freaking world in Koloa, after a hearty swim session. If you go to Hawaii you must have Lappert's ice cream, and preferably in the chocolate-dipped waffle cone. YUM!

*****

The exciting new discovery is that of Zaftique, an online plus size boutique. The line isn't perfect, but I am so thrilled to see a big range of styles offered, seemingly good construction and fit, and to see the clothes modeled on real fat people. I loves me some of the Chevron Dress in Eggplant, the Surplice Ruched Dress in Blue, but especially the Rose Crochet Dress in Black. I would wear that shit to my own wedding!

Check Zaftique out if you get a chance. (They're listed on the sidebar now.)

Countdown to Hawaii

2006-12-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

I'll be heading over to Hawaii in January for the first time in my life, which I should be totally happy about and yet I'm having major anxiety.

First, there's the plane seat. The longest flight I've ever been on was an hour and a half, and that's only because the plane couldn't land at its scheduled 50-minute mark due to fog. For an hour and a half, I'm willing to plant my ass into a too-narrow seat and scrunch my shoulders and arms together so I don't impinge on my fellow or sister passenger. And mind you, this is in a window or aisle seat, where there's just one person to inconvenience due to my fat. The flight to HI is 5 hours on a huge jet with 11 seats across and whereas I could view this through pollyanna eyes... "that means there's the possibility of not just 2, but 4 aisle seats!"... I just don't. It's not me. I'm scared I'm gonna get seated dead center in the dreaded 5-seat mid-section. And did I mention that I get motion sick if I can't see out a window?

Next up we have the very reason we're going: my boyfriend's father. He moved to HI last summer, and the family is decending en masse to visit them. He's a retired surgeon and a senior citizen, which means he eats the equivalent of an apple for lunch and a small salmon steak for dinner and that's it. He's never said anything to me about my weight, but I'm pretty sure he's said something to Honey Bunny. When we're at the dinner table, he'll offer all the men seconds but never ask the women. I'm not about to blame my weight for the fact that he barely talks to me in general, but I'll admit I get suspicious at times.

We're sharing a large vacation home with HB's brother and his family, which is the part I AM looking forward to. HB's Bro & Family are all really sweet and, unlike my own family, understand the concept of needing some space. As in, the space I might need to take when they decide it's time to hike HI's equivalent of the Grand Canyon. You see, Bro and his son are in great shape and are avid hikers. Bro's wife and daughter aren't really athletic types but they generally go along for the ride. HB used to be an avid hiker (before he met me - eeek!) but loves the outdoors enough to suck it up.

Let me preface by saying that I never wanted to live the Bridget Jones cliche... and yet, here I am. On November 15th I said, "I'm going to start going to the gym every day until Hawaii so I'm fit enough to keep up with everyone else." Thanksgiving came and went. On November 30th I said, "Tomorrow is December 1st and I will start walking on the treadmill at the gym everyday until Hawaii." It's now December 9th and I've yet to step a toe in the gym's front door.

I am freaking out! I'm not going to be able to keep up with anyone. My body hates humidity... I'm probably going to pass out from that alone, not to mention doing any strenuous walking. Honey Bunny keeps saying not to make any pie-in-the-sky promises to myself about losing weight or getting fit before HI. I'm wondering if I'll even make it to the gym ONCE before HI.

Hawaii should be paradise, but I feel like I'm walking the plank.

Skinni-Me

2006-10-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

Call it wishful thinking, or call it bizarre, but I have a Skinni-Me. (Get it? Mini-Me... Skinni-Me...) She's my friend Ivy's friend who used to live in San Francisco but moved away a few years ago. Once, when she did live in town, we swapped her bass guitar for my sewing machine when we were taking, respectively, bass lessons and a sewing class. That was the day I realized she was my Skinni-Me.

Not unlike myself, she's somewhat hard to get along with, has had bottle-red hair since high school, and a penchant for vintage/retro stuff. She had already painted her bedroom a lovely baby blue when I was still trying to decide which exact shade of baby blue I wanted for my room. We're both natural-born writers (lucky for her, she's used that to her immense financial and personal gain), and like dressing ourselves in a kicky unique style. Not to mention, we were born within a few days of eachother and are both the very essence of Aries.

What sets us apart is that we are polar opposites on the weight scale. She probably weighs 110 lbs max, whereas I... ok, I'm not going there but suffice to say it's quite a bit more. The weird thing is that I literally think I would look like her if I were 110 lbs. She's got a pointy ski-jump nose, rosy cheeks and green eyes. And I'm pretty sure if she gained weight, it would go to her boobs first and her face last.

Ivy got married this weekend and so I saw Skinni-Me for the first time in a few years. To tell you the truth, I kinda forgot about Skinni-Me until I saw her setting up chairs for the ceremony. I thought, "Who's that girl wearing the excellent robin's egg blue overcoat with some manner of excellent stripey dress underneath, and why does she have my exact same haircut and color??" And then it all came flooding back to me... oh my gosh, Skinni-Me!

I actually gasped when she took her coat off at the reception. That stripey dress was really cool. Sure, she gave me the "this old thing?" response when I complemented her on it, but that's typical Skinni-Me. Not only was it whimsically colorful... it was asymmetrical, and tied over one shoulder. The ties were long enough to form a pretty bow and still have a lengthy drape down the back of the dress. Except that they don't make stuff like that for fat girls, that dress could not have been any more Me.

Staring down the barrel of my Skinni-Me is different now than it was before. In the beginning, it was a severely lacking self-esteem with a dash of girl-crush attraction and several heaping spoonfuls of jealousy. She wasn't just someone who looked like a thin version of me... she was me, having taken a different and more successful path in life. She was me, fully realized.

Several years later, I still lack self esteem, especially where my body is concerned, and often kick myself for not pursuing a more fulfilling career or making time for more of my interests -- but at least I'm solidly living in my own imperfect body and mind. Moreso I'm just baffled at all the things we have in common, rather than clinging on to those similarities for dear life.

I'll probably never see Skinni-Me again, and that's ok with me. I'm going to be tragically unhip, very un-Skinni-Me, and say: You go, girl!

A Letter to Carnie Wilson

2006-10-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

Dearest Carnie,

I remember your interview in People and seeing snippets of other interviews on various TV shows after you got your surgery. What burned a permanent hole in my memory was a portion of the interview when they asked if your husband still would have married you even if you hadn't lost the weight. Your response was something like, "Umm, yeah, I think. I mean, he loves me either way but he prefers me to be thinner. You know, for my health and all." It was sad, Carnie. All that you did during this period of time seemed so desperate. Your struggle was and is no different than pretty much any other fat girl or woman in the US. You long to be seen and loved, and if your life is deprived of that for long enough you'll do pretty much anything to get attention.

Such as... a high profile weight loss surgery that was actually broadcast live on the internet. A high profile slimming down period afterwards. A high profile wedding. A high profile pregnancy and birth. And now, a high profile struggle on Celebrity Fit Club 4 to lose some of the weight you gained back.

Seems you always have to defend yourself and your weight loss surgery. Did you really expect the panel on CFC4 not to bring it up? I never in my life thought I'd say this, but I agreed with them! Dear, you were not 400-500 lbs. and going to die if you didn't get the surgery. You were high 200's and able to lose weight without medical intervention. In fact, all the money you spent on the surgery could've hooked you up with Jackie Warner at Sky and a personal chef to cook you nice low-fat or low-carb meals. Sure, Rosie O'Donnell sided with you on The View in regards to the panel's comments but I'm pretty sure she was just licking your ass in typical Hollywood fashion. You are so lucky you didn't end up as a haiku on her blog.

Speaking of The View, let's address a little something you said about your one year old daughter that frightened the shit out of me. Something to the effect of, "Sometimes she has food all over her face and yet she's still trying to tell me she's hungry, and I think, Oh my gosh! Should I not feed her so she won't end up like me?" Do you realize this isn't healthy? Children are not yet tainted by thoughts of shit like, "I'm not really hungry anymore but I think I'll still eat." They eat until they're full - faces smeared with food or not - and then they stop. Granted, they learn by example and so you need to set a good one for her, but let the child eat what she wants for right now, for fuck's sake!

Ultimately, Carnie, I have compassion for you. Hollywood is not an easy place to reside, and you could've taken much more drastic measures than just getting a couple of surgeries. I know what it's like to want acceptance, and the desperation that can well up from that deep dark place. All I really want to say to you is, Chill the fuck out and get some therapy! You always look like you're about to burst from the seams, and I ain't talking about your body or clothes. Work on your mind instead of your body for a little while, because I'm sure it will be welcome respite. You need it.

Love,
Zaftig Girl

Jeans for sale

2006-08-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

If there are any size 26 petite ladies out there, I'm selling a pair of Lane Bryant stretch flare jeans on Craiglist.

Click here to see the post. I'll ship to wherever, you don't have to be a Bay Area local!

**********
UPDATE 3/9/07

I still have these jeans if anyone wants them for free! In fact, I have many other pairs that haven't worked out as well, almost brand new.

Phat Girlz, Part 3

2006-08-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

Just heard that Phat Girlz is coming out on DVD on 8/22/06. If you didn't get a chance to see it in the theater, I definitely recommend checking it out. There's really no other fat-themed film like it in the world. Check out my review here.

Wedding madness

2006-07-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

I'm, as my Dad would say, a "women's libber" so I've been thinking a bit about asking Honey Bunny to marry me. Let me assure you... this has nothing at all to do with researching dress, shoe and hair possibilities and fanciful thoughts of cleverly-worded custom-designed letterpressed invitations. Ahem. Well, maybe just a teensy bit.

Well, slap me on the back and call me Judy because I had no idea there were so many options for fat girls in the wedding dress department! I seriously thought there would be like six whole styles to choose from, and they would be:

1) The 80's mutton-chop sleeve version

2) The super poofy princess version

3) The "it has to have long sleeves because I hate my arms" version

4) All above rolled into one

5) The "I can't find a wedding dress so will wear Mother of the Bride dress instead" version

- and last but not least -

6) The "I'm fat so I might as well dress like a Renaissance Faire wench" version

(I used to work at the Renaissance Faire so I'm allowed to joke about that last one.)

But no! Instead, there are beautiful and tasteful choices just like there are for the skinnier gals, and lots of vendors to choose from. Even Lane Bryant has come out with a small sampling of wedding dresses on their website. Who knew?

Slightly less shocking but still exciting is that there is now an endless array of bridesmaid dresses in sizes up to 28. You know, I was a bridesmaid five times in the 90's alone... it was always a challenge to find plus-size dresses, to the point where I had to have 3 of the 5 made for me by a tailor.

Wow!

Well anyhow, in case you're wondering -- I am seriously thinking about asking for HB's hand, and not because of the design possibilities. He's the love of my life and I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else. Awww!

(Hopefully he doesn't really read my blog, hee.)

Madness

2006-07-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

My world has been rocked, and by something I never would've imagined. One of my bosses went out on medical leave about 6 weeks ago, for surgery. Given that she didn't tell any of us what type of surgery she was having, I assumed it was probably something deeply personal such as a hysterectomy, while others in the office were speculating plastic surgery of some sort. Mind you, we're not talking about someone who is shy in any way, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt given that she was a radical feminist in the 70's, and a lesbian (until recently) to boot.

She sauntered back into work yesterday looking a good 20 lbs. lighter in the stomach. I looked at her and didn't quite know what to say. After some pressing by coworkers ("Soooo... are you ok after your, you know, surgery?"), she told us that she'd had a tummy tuck and some liposuction, and that opened the flood-gates. Whatever hesitancy she'd had to speak on the subject until then flew out the window and we were witness to a 45-minute long soliloquy on the wonder that was her plastic surgery.

The most horrifying part was when she whipped up her shirt to show us her "new" belly button. You know, because when you have a tummy tuck they pull the skin down taught to just above your pubic hair and sew it there -- thus, you no longer have your real belly button anymore and the surgeon has to create a new one. Red and inflamed, jagged, stitched, bizarre: those are the words to describe the new belly button, at least at this stage in the game.

There was much talk of drains that stuck out of her abdomen for several weeks during the recovery, and how she basically had to just stay laying down for four weeks straight. She spent the whole time in a Vicodin haze and then had to kick the ensuing addiction in order to return to work. It took a week for the withdrawl symptoms to subside, a week where she couldn't sleep, had hot and cold flashes, and apparently was a monsterous bitch. Meanwhile, she could barely walk to and from the bathroom without collapsing into sleep afterwards, because it took so much energy to just walk 10 paces.

One of my favorite things was hearing about how the surgery came to pass. She casually mentioned to her fiancee that she'd thought about having a tummy tuck since beginning menopause. He replied, "I'll pay for it if you want to do it." Then the consultation appointment where the plastic surgeon looked at her naked body and said, "Yep, you're a perfect candidate for these procedures. Your body is going to look hot after all is said and done." (Wow, I wonder if all plastic surgeons are so sincere?)

The madness is in just how proud she is of the entire thing. She was proud to have her fiancee pay for it, she was proud that the plastic surgeon flattered her, she was proud to have drains sticking out of her body and to have a Vicodin addiction, and now she's proud to show off her newly flattened stomach and new belly button.

I mean... it's seriously all just beyond me. I've watched episodes of Dr. 90210 and Nip/Tuck, and I've seen celebrity transformations in the tabloids. I've just never had someone in my own world get surgery, and it's heart-breaking. She doesn't think it's heart-breaking, she thinks it's ground-breaking. Not that I ever looked up to her specifically in terms of feminist values, but she represented something to me.

I guess you could say I've lost my innocence where this particular subject is concerned. (That happens a lot as an adult, and it's never less shocking than the last time it happened.) What normal person elects to have herself cut open and cut and scraped away (or added to) for the sake of vanity? I'm sorry for being a judgemental asshole, but you have got to be totally sick in the head if you think it's ok to do this to yourself. Celebrities are one thing - they're not normal and as sick as it is, their livelihood depends on their apprearance. I realize that lots of people get plastic surgery done, not just the usual suspects -- but again, never anyone in my world. Perhaps it wouldn't have felt so shocking if all my coworkers hadn't followed her sermon with, "Oh my god! I'm totally going to ask my husband if I can get it done now!"

And speaking of which, my personal albeit old-school feminist values are also all riled up by the fact that her fiancee endorsed it, paid for it, and is of course supporting the theory that she now looks hot. (Whereas before she looked like dog shit? I mean, come on!)

Sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick!

Fat girl shopping & a TV show to avoid

2006-07-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

I decided to throw legal caution to the wind and link to all the plus size clothing stores I could find on the web. Some of the stores have pure crap in my opinion, but I've been bitching for years about the lack of plus size clothing stores so I'm just gonna zip it and link up. I honestly couldn't believe how many stores came up in the Yahoo search.

Of course, most of the stores listed are stores that already make thin-person clothes and have expanded their selection - but that's cool, I'm not complaining. But what I'd really love to see is some great plus-size boutiques that design and make their own clothes based on a concept, rather than to just cover the basics. We need some style and pizazz! We need sweet and cute dresses that are well-made and could make it to the pages of Glamour mag. (Yes, so they can be accessorized with some insanely large and wide leather belt with ugly "nailhead" studding on it... sorry, but have you seen the last two issues? I mean, bathing suits with belts?? Please save me!)

You know what surprised the hell out of me was to see that Eddie Bauer is now making up to size 26. Eddie and I, we go way back. Picture me in 1998: a size 20-22, a starving student transitioning into a starving graduate with an extremely low paying first job, a horrible shopping addiction, and a handful of store credit cards. Eddie Bauer pretty much outfitted me for said first job... preppy and cute with an affinity for twin-sets. (They also had excellent bedding - it was the first time I'd spent over $100 per sheet set - but that's another story for another time.) Eddie and I were on top of the world! Until I realized I could no longer keep up with minimum payments and had to succumb to Consumer Credit Counseling. And then again when I surpassed size 22. Eddie and I haven't spoken since then, but maybe we'll give it another whirl.

*****

Now, about that TV show to avoid... what exactly is up with TLC's stupid fucking "Honey, We're Killing the Kids!"? Along with "The Biggest Loser" and "Celebrity Fit Club", they don't try to hide how contemptuous they are of the fat folk they're trying to "help". "Honey" uses computer imaging/age progressions to show the parents what their fat kids are going to look like when they get older if they continue eating/not exercising on the same arc that they presently are. Hmm, interesting how little normal looking (but fat) 10 year old Johnny progresses into a fat balding fag! Yes, one earring, sloping puppy dog eyes, a bad comb-over and hygiene issues. And little normal looking (but fat) 8 year old Jenny progresses into a bedraggled trailerpark princess... thinning dirty hair pulled back into a messy low ponytail and all.

I would have never noticed this myself - never! - had I not been accidentally watching "The Soup" on E! one day. They did a bit that pointed out how ridiculous the whole age progression thing was.

You know, I get it... I get that kids are less active and more overfed today than at any other time in history. I get that obesity is at an all-time high. But I tend to lean towards the theory a different TLC show, "Shalom in the Home", is touting. Hello - PARENTS are the problem! Don't make the fat your kid is wearing the scapegoat for your own poor parenting. If you want your kid to be in shape and eat right, then you need to model that behavior for them, make it the norm in your household, and try to make it interesting and fun in some way. That's probably part of "Honey"'s theory too, but given that I've never made it through an entire show without throwing the remote at the wall, I wouldn't know. That Dr. Hark woman is a real piece of work.

And besides, I wonder how many people effectively lose weight and become healthy, especially in the long-term, as a result of scare tactics? (Which, by the way, was kind of a fun show.)

Iconic

2006-04-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

I saw the trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest recently and just about squealed when scenes from the swampy bog, creaky house on stilts and all, were shown. Having grown up in Southern California, we went to Disneyland every couple of years and "Pirates of the Caribbean" was my favorite ride. I loved cruising through that swamp, and also the room where the two galleons were having the cannonball battle. The smell of that room was so distinct, as was the dark blue and cloudy "sky".

So, Disney has found a way to further capitalize on one of their most iconic rides. People like me will pay $10.50 to see the movie because the damn ride captured us as kids. (Orlando Bloom isn't quite reason enough to plunk down $10.50, believe me.)

At any rate, this got me thinking... who and what is iconic in the fat realm?

Two sprang to mind immediately. Cartman and his "I'm not fat, I'm big boned" is a no brainer. I'm not sure he gives fat people a good name, but at least it's a bold one.

The other one, nearer and dearer to my heart, is Divine playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. The image of Divine in Edna drag profile burned itself into my brain forever. Why? Because her clothes hang from the protruding bustline formed by that severely molded bra, and I saw myself. In 1989, I could make my best friend laugh her ass off simply by turning to profile, putting my hands on my hips, and waddling away while saying "Gosh darn that rock and roll music."

Let us not forget Tracy Turnblad, or Ricki Lake for that matter. Tracy proved that fat chicks can, and love to, dance. She landed the hot guy. She wore a large and lovely purple satin ballgown with a roach print on it, for gawd's sake. How can you not love that?

Ricki Lake, on the other hand, went the way of Oprah and had to lose weight before she felt good about herself. I will say in her defense that Jerry Springer stole the whole format from her, right down to the cheesy moralistic monologue at the end of each show, so at least she was a front-runner in something. Oprah is still struggling with her weight and self-esteem, which feels so very wasteful to me given that she's one of the most powerful and influential female voices in the US.

My Honey Bunny just named his favorite fat icon: Queen Latifa. He loves his Latifa. You know what I love about her? She's never made an issue out of her size or weight. I adored her as Mama Morton in Chicago. How can you not love that vast plateau of breasts during the "When You're Good to Mama" scene?

If we're talking boobs, we can't forget Aretha Franklin.

Hey, Monica Lewinsky... why not? (Thanks, HB)

Fat Albert.

Missy Elliot? (but she got the operation)

I could do a whole separate post on "what" is iconic in fat land. Geez, where do I even start on that one? TAB soda maybe.

Phat Girlz, Part 2

2006-04-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

So I saw Phat Girlz last night, and it was definitely enjoyable. I hadn't realized that it was a low budget production, or that it was shot on digital video rather than film... and those things made me like it more, actually. It lended a sadness to the story that would've been missed if it were a sparklingly clean and expensive production.

Of course there's a happy ending - no surprise there - but I was glad (and somewhat surprised) to see and feel those "sad" qualitites during the majority of the film. Being fat is, afterall, complicated. Sometimes you feel like a diva and sometimes you feel like you're unlovable, and Mo'Nique did a great job of conveying that conflict in her role.

It's by no means a terrific or perfect movie. I just love that Mo'Nique decided to tackle the issue, and no matter how corny the ending gets - "Plus-Size Revolution Takes World By Storm!" - it's a sweet fantasy to have.

Mail order frustration

2006-04-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or does mail ordering clothes totally suck? Stuff can look so good on catalog models but in person it looks like shit. I'm assuming this may is the case for thin people as well as thick. It doesn't really matter what size you are... if the clothes are badly made, then it's not going to look good, period. Well, except on catalog models because someone has clipped and pinned the crap out of the clothing to make it look tailored and crisp when it would otherwise look like an oversized misshapen gunny sack hanging on a "plus size" model's frame.

...which brings me to my next point. Why would a catalog selling plus-size clothing use thin models? Sorry, Silhouettes, but you really are one of the worst offenders here.

I just bought the boot-cut jeans from Silhouettes, actually. I thought, Why not? Couldn't be any worse than Lane Bryant. Oh yes it could be. They were so weirdly loose in the thighs, I looked like I should be a backup dancer for MC Hammer circa 1990. U can't touch this! I sent them back the next day. And lost the $7.95 I paid in shipping originally, plus paid almost the same to have it shipped back. I paid $14.95 to try on the equivalent of old-fashioned riding jodphurs and spend 20 minutes in line at the post office. Sweet.

And for the record, Lane Bryant's jeans really are the best jeans going these days. I'm sorry to have doubted you, oh mighty clothing chain!

For my birthday last week, I thought I'd buy myself a pretty little dress from Alight.com that I've had my eye on for awhile. I even paid for expedited shipping so it'd be here in time for me to wear to my party. Please know that the real deal looked NOTHING like the catalog picture. The waistline was about twice the size as the rest of the dress, and I still don't understand why that is. And the length of the dress is about two feet longer than you'd judge by the photo. So - again, back to the post office to wait in line with 15 other grumpy people and this time my toll for misguided mail order shopping was $28.00.

(By the way, if you took note of the Blue Plate clothing line when you checked out Alight.com - be sure to order 2 sizes bigger than you normally wear. It took two failed orders to learn that lesson for myself. Their stuff is cute as hell, I'll give 'em that... but they need to re-size their clothing line.)

Boy, the sad thing is that I could just keep going on and on. I've ordered stuff from pretty much every store listed on the sidebar at right, and 99% of the time it hasn't worked out. The only thing I've ever ordered that was successful were cork wedge sandals in wide width from Easy Spirit. Shoes are always our savior though, right?

I heart fat girl lit

2006-03-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Weiner is such a fun writer. If you haven't read (or seen) In Her Shoes or read any of Jennifer's other work, I highly recommend it. Good in Bed will always be a classic for me. ("Shouts" to any of you who remember the first chapter of Good in Bed being published in Mode magazine!) Jennifer's blog, SnarkSpot, is bookmarked on my browser, and I check it out every few days - although it seems she's become a busy little bee in the past year and writes pretty infrequently. But when she does, it's a good time had by all.

Did anyone see her in the April issue of Glamour magazine? It was within an article called "What It's Like..." where various women weigh in on what their lives are like. For instance, "...to Become Famous as Jessica Simpson's Assistant", ie. Cacee Cobb. Jennifer Weiner's was, "...to be Plus Sized on the Red Carpet", in reference to her experience with In Her Shoes.

I've also been reading Liza Palmer's blog lately. Parts of Conversations with the Fat Girl hit so close to home, I practically shriveled in my own skin while reading.

My friend Theresa gave me Jane Green's novel, Bookends, for my birthday last year. I had read a cast-off copy of Jemima J a couple of years ago and really hated it. (Jennifer Weiner didn't like it either. I was at one of her book signings and someone asked her what "chick lit" books she didn't like. She said, and I'm paraphrasing, "I won't name names, but it rhymes with 'Fafima Fey'.") But, I read Bookends despite my hesitation and ended up liking it quite a bit.

There's lots of other good and/or fun fat girl fare out there. People have always told me I should read Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone, so I'm just about to embark on it. Hopefully it won't be too painful, but something tells me it's going to be.

Getting raw

2006-03-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

I lost all my links because I changed the color of my blog. And all because someone told me, "Um, it's very PINK." You'd think a 33 year old woman would know to take comments preceded by "Um..." with a large grain of salt. UMMMM's are supposed to be funny, I guess. They're really just personal opinions with a pinch of criticism and belittlement.

I don't know if it's a fat thing (because I've been fat for literally 30 years now and don't know any other life), but I'm a very sensitive person and I can take things personally. It fluctuates. Sometimes I feel very strong and other people's opinions and criticisms roll off me like water off a duck's back. Other times, however...

My coworker, who is a very direct and blunt woman, once told me, "Nothing is personal. People act from their own experiences and for themselves." Which, granted, is very true. Need I even point out that my coworker telling me this was a product of confronting her about her communication style (which I perceived as condescending)?

I bring it up on this blog (the blog that I was trying to keep "light") because for me it directly relates to how vulnerable I'm feeling in my body. I feel pretty disconnected from it these days. I feel like a brain floating around in a badly-permed head, and the rest of me doesn't matter so much.

There's a deep childhood connection. I'm pretty sure I hated my body until recent years (consider this a shout-out to my [ex]therapist). I'm also pretty sure I learned that hatred from others, especially family. Anyone who grew up fat knows how much attention and criticism you get as a result of your body. When it comes directly from the people who are supposed to love and care for you, then the message is pretty darn mixed: I love you but I can also criticize you. Or worse: The way I love you is to criticize you, or, I reject you because of how you look. That shit can really wear you down to a raw nothing over the years. When you're a kid growing up, how are you supposed to know that the criticism you're receiving is not about you, but is instead about the criticizer's insecurities? Or that a concern for your health is "just" expressing itself as criticism?

This rawness I feel about my body right now is a familiar feeling. The familiar conclusion is that those around me are pointing their criticism at me because they notice my body and must comment on it. Afterall, if I'm thinking it about myself then I basically become a self-fulfilling prophesy. My childhood reaction was to retreat and be invisible. My adult reaction is to lash out, which is nominally better. At least I take care of myself enough to defend myself, even if it's from a phantom.

I'm not an Oprah fan, but two of her more successful weight-loss attempts conjure in my head as I'm writing. First, "making the connection". I've always assumed she meant "between mind and body", and I've always rejected that idea because it sounds like weight loss industry dogma. But sure, I'll admit maybe there's some truth in it.

The other Oprah sentiment is about working on and from your "core". I'm sure she thought she was being very clever with her double entendre meaning doing Pilates but also centering oneself. But again, I get it.

I think what I'm talking about is deeper than that, though. You can have a strong mind-body connection and a solid core, but if you get knocked off balance then it's pretty hard to apply those things. (Oprah herself was knocked off balance, many times!) Perhaps I'm speaking more to triggers... or in my case it feels like a domino-effect of triggers. Setting that shit back up again is really hard work and for me it always seems unfair in some way. I didn't put my body hatred there, so why should I have to fix it? Nevertheless, I do and I will.

On a last note, I'll have the links back up and running gradually. I welcome any suggestions for links and/or new link "genres" so write me if you got 'em.

ps. It's thundering and hailing like a mo-fo outside right now! What am I, in Texas?

Undies, Part 2: Thongs Are the Devil's Handywork

2006-02-19T01:31:00.000-08:00

I remember when it struck me that thongs were going to play a larger role in culture than I really wanted them to. "The Thong Song" was at the height of its popularity, and I had a horrible crush on a coworker-friend who was starting to consistently point out girls who he deemed hot simply because they had thong or g-string straps hanging out the top of their low-rise jeans. Against my better judgement but propelled by what I thought was burning hot love on the horizon, I bought a thong at my earliest convenience. Low-rise jeans weren't yet being made for fat girls so I put on jeans that I knew gapped in the back when I bent over, pulled some scrap paper from my recycling bin, and went to work faux filing - in crouched position - in front of my coworker-friend's office. The only thing this accomplished was grossing out my other (gay) coworker-friend, Steve, who happened to witness the occasion from his own office windows. I heard a gasp, a mutterance of "Whoa, g-string", and thought to myself "oh shit."

Things never did work out with the (straight) coworker-friend, thankfully. Or the thong in general for that matter. I ended up throwing the aforementioned thong (and two g-strings from other ridiculous attempts; no comment) to a fiery grave one winter when I was into ceremonially burning old tired mementos.

Remember how I mentioned my friend Shasta in the "Undies, Part 1" posting? Regarding the thong, she'd said, "You just gotta get used to it." She also said that after a few days, the urge to pick the strap out your ass subsides which was not at all true for me. I could only wear a thong for an hour max before I felt like I was going crazy in my head, and had to get the thing out and away from my body ASAP. A few days?? No fucking way.

Lucky for me, there's diversity in the undies world and so I can be comfortable while still looking nice. There are lots of options to avoid what we used to call "VPL" in the 80's (Visable Panty Lines). It seems like skin tight pants/jeans without back pockets are out of vogue now, too. And oh my gawd, can we just acknowledge the fortunate passing of freakishly low-rise jeans and thongs decorated at the top of the butt with shit like sequined butterflies, ie. thongs that are made for the express purpose of hanging out the top of pants?! My favorite Project Runway word applies here: VULGAR. I don't want to know what's in someone else's buttcrack, thank you very much.

Phat Girlz

2006-02-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

Tee hee, I was so happy to see this movie on the Apple Quicktime Movie Trailers site! It looks like it's going to be fun.

Undies, Part 1: Keeping the Girls Hoisted

2006-01-29T22:30:00.000-08:00

Pretty much since the moment I turned 12, I've been on the Great Bra Hunt. There was a period in the mid to late 90's when I found a bra that fit correctly, and made the girls a nice shape, and wasn't butt ugly, and didn't break the bank. Size 38D comes to mind. Everything upwards of that has been all about finding a bra that is the lesser of the evils, a bra that will "do".

Truth be told, I wore two bras at once for a few years. Soft cup over underwire, because neither of them did the job alone. I was painfully embarassed by the situation. At one point, I was taking an aerobics class twice weekly, and would change my top in the restroom stall instead of at my locker. I mean, who wears two bras at once and actually admits it?!

One day I ended up at Norstroms because they have all the expensive fancy bras that supposedly fit and look better. There wasn't really money in my bank account for expensive bras, but I was desperate. I picked a few out and took them to the dressing room, praying for a good outcome. (This was pretty standard for the two-bra era. No matter what store I was in, I would pick out some bras that looked great on the hanger and I would absolutely pray they would fit - but they never did.) Nordstroms had a bra fitter that basically forced herself into my dressing room with measuring tape in hand after I tried on all the bras and told her they didn't fit. She looked at my choices and said, "If these didn't fit you, you've got a big problem. You must see my friend Carole in San Mateo." She wrote down Carole's number and the store name, which I found in the phone book when I got home... a 1/4-page ad that stated they had professional fitters, a huge selection, and specialized in odd bra sizes.

I hauled my cookies to San Mateo the next weekend and saw Carole. She measured me and determined that I needed a 40F. Every single 40F in that store looked like shit to begin with... stark white with scratchy unattractive polyester "lace" sewn over the solid polyester skeleton. They looked far worse on my apparently odd frame and torso... droopy cups, band too loose, no support, you name it. Carole was stumped and when you stump a professional bra-fitter - you are really in a pickle. She asked what I'd been doing thus far for a bra and I grugingly admitted my two-bra secret. She said, "Well if that's what works for you, then go with it!"

I confessed my secret to a few friends shortly after. One of them, Hilary, said, "Um, do you like them so high up on your chest like that, so supported, so perky?" I inferred from this that maybe it wasn't the best look. It was actually the growing popularity of the thong that got me back to wearing just one bra at a time. I'd had a crappy experience with the whole thong thing and asked my friend Shasta, who had made the thong conversion, how she'd done so. "You just gotta get used to it," she said. It didn't work for the thong, so instead I took this bit of advice to heart where my double-bra situation was concerned. I decided that if people can not only get used to, but actually prefer, having a strap or a string in their buttcracks all day long, I could get used to having my breasts hang a little freer.

The softcup bra gave me major uni-boob so I went with the underwire. Other than the creepy unprotected and unsupported feeling I had for the first month, the main cause for concern was the part of the wire that came up between my boobs. It certainly didn't lay flat against my chest like it's "supposed" to, but it was ok-ish for the first 10 minutes of wearing it. Then my posture would relax, or I'd sit down, or whatever, and the wire would end up sticking out from my body at a 90 degree angle, so much so that it would surpass the horizon line of my boobs. In a fit of rage about this one day, because really I had had just about enough of this bra bullshit, I grabbed the tops of the underwires and bent them violently towards my body. Who knew it would work so well that it'd be a method I still use to this day? It's the advantages of the underwire (structure, shape) combined with the advantages of the softcup (comfort, coverage). I bend at the other end of the underwire, too, if it happens to poke me in the armpit or upper under-arm. Yes, it leaves your bras looking sculpted and slightly mangled, but it works.... it really really works!

I also discovered, quite by accident, that minimizers work better for my particular boobs. Minimizers by nature provide a lot of support since they're made to squash. Currently my favorite bra style is a Lilyette minimizer that I bend the hell out of on the first wearing. The one thing you should never attempt is buying a bigger band or cup size in a minimizer thinking that it will fit like a normal bra by virtue of being bigger/not squashing. No no no, not true. I just threw out two bras that I'd purchased to test this theory... they were a complete joke.

Lane Bryant threw a curveball this fall. I hated their bras up until this current collection. It always seemed like they were going for the stylish thing moreso than the good fit thing. They would do stupid shit like make size 44DD bras with only two rows of hook enclosures (so the band in back was very narrow) or with straps that were a 1/4" wide. I swear the cups were not true, either. I couldn't squeeze my breasts into a DD with a crowbar when I was able to fit every other company's DD just fine. Believe me when I say I've been miffed about this for years. How in the hell could the largest, most visible fat girl clothing chain carry bras that were so ill-fitting??

I get emailed coupons from LB, one of which announced they were expanding their bra selection in both style and size. I didn't believe them until I did the most recent of my twice-annual LB shopping blowouts, after Thanksgiving. I found a DDD in a bra that was surprisingly pretty and had no expectation of it actually fitting correctly or at all. But alas, they must have resized their cups because these F girls fit into the DDD just fine, and the bra was comfortable too. I did the jump test, and they stayed in the cups. So I did it again, but for longer. All good! I didn't even get what my sister calls "bubbles", which is the effect one gets when the top and middle edge of the cup is too tight and boob starts to slowly spill out.

In December, LB had it's Buy 2 Get 2 Free bra sale so I anted up online and bought some of the styles offered in F cup, which they don't sell in store. When I was 21 I had to endure my friends wearing Vicky's Secret plunges that gave them insane cleavage while I settled for my crap bras. So how excited was I to put on the F cup balconette and have my cleavage look like Vicky's Secret plunge cleavage?? Don't get me wrong -- I think VS is heinous for myriad reasons but when you spend as many years on the bra fringes as I have, it's nice to take pause to be normal and average for a moment.

Unfortunately the other styles didn't really work, but I'm more than happy with two new bra styles to wear. Now I understand when the likes of Stacy London and InStyle tell you to choose the appropriate bra for the outfit. The balconette has to be used sparingly because of how padded and cleavage-inducing it is. The other aforementioned LB bra looks really atrocious with certain shirts... not really sure what's up with that. The Lilyette minimizer that I've customized via bending the wires, however, works for everything except plunging necklines.

The one thing LB can do to further redeem itself is offer the bigger bras in all the fun novelty patterns and such. Not sure why it's so impossible for a manufacturer to make a 44F in the fuscia and black polka dotted valentines edition of the balconette when they've already made a 44DD version of it...

Fat suit report on SNL

2006-01-29T10:29:00.000-08:00

Did any of you catch Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live last night? (It was a rerun from 12/3/05, with host Dane Cook.) Rachel Dratch did a special guest report in which she dressed in a fat suit and went out in public with secret cameras, a la Tyra.

I loved at the end when she said she was going to put the suit back on and go on a date to Red Lobster with one of the black men who hit on her, because he'd told her he wanted to "get in all her crevices"!

Plus-size models

2005-12-20T16:43:00.000-08:00

If you watched the last cycle of "America's Next Top Model", you're familiar with plus-sized contestant and boo-boo Diane. Sure, she's a beautiful woman with a lovely curvy body. But honestly I was annoyed as all get-out that yet another bland flat-ironed head was possibly going to enter the plus-sized model workforce.

I'm just plain bored of the whole plus-sized model "look" in general. This is largely due to the fact that the only access to plus-size models is via fat girl clothing catalogs. There is no fat girl Vogue, in which Gille St. Bensimon takes stark black and white photos with plus-size models in haute couture and extreme makeup and hair. All we get to see is Kate Dillon doing her best demure smile in a pose meant to sell as many $39.99 sweaters as possible.

It sucks, because in a good photo shoot models can wear art and they can be art themselves and it can be really beautiful and effective. Both the photographer and fashion afficianado in me is dying to see this applied to the plus-sized world.

Lastly, I found this site via Yahoo Search which is kinda sweet. What can I say? I'm a sucker for guys who dig fat chicks.

Coke vs. Diet Coke

2005-11-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

I used to be a soda whore. I grew up with an allowance of $5 per week in an anti-cola household, so getting a soda the size of my head at the corner 7-11 for 99 cents was the coolest thing ever. My parents loathed soda, so my sisters taught me on the sly. Alicia was all about the Dr. Pepper. Amy would mix Coke, Diet Coke and Lemonade. My personal choice was the greatest sugar bomb of all: Pepsi.

Granted, this was suburban Southern California in the 80's. We didn't know any better. The reason my parents cited for hating cola were the astronomical dentist bills that would surely follow rotting teeth. All we knew was that soda tasted damn good when it was hot out, and when accompanied by generic B-B-Q potato chips, and especially when you just spent 5 straight activity-filled chlorine-soaked hours in the neighbor's swimming pool. I mean, why would you even think about drinking water??

My addiction reached an all-time high in the summer of 1994. I'd just finished my first year at San Francisco State University and was home in So Cal for the summer. I got a job as a florist's delivery driver, which was fun because I was paid to sit behind the wheel of an obnoxiously cold air-conditioned mini-van delivering arrangements to people who weren't expecting them. My ritual: every morning on the way to my first delivery, I'd stop at Del Taco and get a mega extra large of Mr. Pibb. Every afternoon for lunch, I'd stop at Del Taco and get a mega extra large of Mr. Pibb. And I'd leave with a refill to take me through the afternoon. Seriously, I thought there was nothing at all wrong with this behavior.

After a few years in San Francisco, I realized that one of the worst things you can be is a soda addict. You can smoke pot in front of school children, you can be homeless with a rabid pitbull at your side, you can be a corporate-employed yuppie driving your Volvo recklessly to Whole Foods because that's "the only place you want to give your money to", but gawd forbid you order a fountain Pepsi with your lunch.

That is, gawd forbid you order a fountain Pepsi and also be a fat person, because you'll actually get a Diet Pepsi even though you asked for non-diet. I cannot count on one hand how many times this has happened to me over the 12 years I've lived in the Bay Area. After the third time it happened, I decided to poll my friends to see if it ever happened to them. There's only been one occurance in my friend pool, and she's also fat.

That's not at all what made me decide to make the switch to diet. It helped a little, maybe. When you're used to regular soda, nothing is more heinous than a drop of the diet stuff so much as touching your lips. But, I was quite shy during this time in my life, and thus dealing with nasty diet soda was a better option than having to send it back.

Ultimately, it was my sister Alicia being diagnosed with diabetes that sealed the deal. She relayed info from her doctor about how blood sugar works, and the effect just one can of soda can have on it. It took about 2 seconds to figure out that, among other things, I'd have to become Diet Coke Girl or else.

Oddly enough, just the other day a server at a restaurant brought me regular Pepsi when I'd ordered Diet. I drank half for old time's sake and then had to send it back for Diet. After you transition, regular soda is kinda nasty in the same way diet was nasty when you were used to regular.

I'd love to be off the sauce completely. Soda is nasty in lots of ways. It rots your teeth whether the sugar is in it or not, dark cola is hard on your tummy, and I read about there being a connection between carbonation and breast cancer.

Hell, maybe I'm just becoming a tried and true snobby San Franciscan.

Two articles of interest

2005-11-18T16:23:00.000-08:00

Links were sent to me by Anna and Shasta, respectively. Thank you, ladies!

Obesity: Epidemic or Myth?
By Patrick Johnson

America's Waistline: The Politics of Fat
By Laura Kipnis

Letter to Nickolodeon

2005-11-15T11:39:00.000-08:00

Not sure how many of you have seen these PSA-type advertisements on Nickolodeon regarding food choice, portion control, etc. Apparently Former Prez Bill Clinton co-created this campaign with Nickolodeon due to the "national childhood obesity crisis", which to me is a fine example of one notable adult taking his lifelong hatred of his body / love of french fries to the next level after enduring a triple-bypass.

Personally I think we adults put way too much of our crap on children in general. They're not miniature adults, but proponents of consumerism (ie. Nickolodeon with it's two aisles full of toys and large selection of clothes/shoes/accessories with Nick characters on them in my local Target) would just love to make them that way, wouldn't they? And why not add to a rampant conditioning against fatties in the meantime!

So here's the letter I just wrote to Viacom International, Nick's parent company, which will likely never see it's way to Nick executives but hell... I had to get it off my chest.

ps. Yes, I watch Nick for Spongebob Squarepants thanks to Honey Bunny.

**********
To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in response to a Public Service Announcement seen on Nickolodeon, regarding portion control as it relates to pie. The PSA compares fat calories in pie against those in milk shakes and various other foods, and tells the viewer that it's okay to indulge in pie every once in awhile but not okay on a regular basis. Additionally, the last scene in this PSA states, "Don't let P-I-E turn you into a
P-I-G."

I find this particular PSA offensive, and the campaign overall to be bizarre. First of all, studies on childhood brain development show that children are not at all capable of making choices in the same fashion that adults are. You're asking a very young audience to absorb statistical information and formulate a decision to eat less sweets based on it which seems, frankly, ridiculous and misguided to this 33
year old viewer.

More importantly, I find the use of "P-I-G" to be extremely offensive towards fat populations. It's obvious that the young fat population is being targeted (and therefore marketed to) right now, with a large national campaign against childhood obesity. Being a fat child in America is hard enough as it is with teasing by peers and pressure to lose weight from all sorts of adult and authority figures. The last
thing fat children need is for young Nickolodeon viewers to become even more conditioned by a popular mass media outlet to call fat people "pig" or to make a blanket generalization that over-eating equals fat. There are plenty of children who over-eat but who aren't fat, due to genetics and other factors.

An example of PSA that works more effectively in targeting part of the PROBLEM of obesity rather than the POPULATION itself came later in this particualar Nickolodeon viewing session. Nickolodeon apparently donated bicycles to a small school in order to enrich their physical education program. The PSA showed scenes of children of all sizes enjoying a bike ride in their town, which is a strengths-based empowerment perspective. The use of the word "pig" is the polar opposite.

Sincerely,
[Zaftig Chick]
San Francisco, CA
**********

Fat cat

2005-10-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

Judging me, a human, for being fat is one thing... but my cat?

Honey Bunny and I have new upstairs neighbors. I heard through a mutual friend that he thinks my cat is too big. Of course, one of their cats is named "Shamu" - as in the famous whale - so maybe there's a theme here.

If my cat were human, she'd probably be about a size 14. Yeah, she'd be shopping at Lane Bryant and some of the 14s would be too small on her while some of the 16s would be too big, and she'd complain aloud about the state of shopping at her size 15 while the size 26s in the store sneered at her in contempt. Granted, being a seriously fluffy Norwegian Forest Cat doesn't help matters in the size department. Her kitty afro is so beautiful that it makes the other cats in the neighborhood jealous. But seriously, she's at the bottom of the plus-size cat scale, thank you very much.

This isn't the first time I've heard something about her weight, either. Everytime she goes to the vet, they tell me she needs to lose weight. (Funny, because that's what happens everytime *I* go to the doctor, too.) Kitty has actually lost 3 pounds in the last year because she hates the urine-crystal-abatement-plan food she's now required to eat. Now she's got belly flab that hangs down and swings when she walk.

Long round-about point being that it's bad enough fat is obsessed about so readily in our human culture, but are people so conditioned against fat that they're now pointing the finger at fat pets, too?

Sidenote about the sidebar

2005-10-18T18:18:00.000-07:00

See those links on the right-hand sidebar, for fat girl shopping? Lane Bryant, Catherine's and Fashion Bug are missing because apparently, if I link to their sites, their parent corporation can legally sue me. No thanks!

I personally like Lane Bryant, so it's unfortunate.

If I'm missing any other good fat sites - clothing or otherwise - please comment or email me to let me know what they are. I would love to add to the collection!

There IS a partner out there for you

2005-10-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'd resigned myself to one night stands with guys who were too drunk to care that I was fat. I'd resigned myself to crushes on guys who flirted with the idea of being with me but in the end were too concerned about friends and families opinions about fat people. I'd resigned myself to never having a true boyfriend or lover, ever.

Then one day, I resigned myself to opening up my own narrow scope of guys who were acceptable (ie. thin-as-rail hipsters) because I realized I was being kinda hypocritical. I ended up going out with a guy who was fat, but of course he was also a hipster because "that's my thing". It ended in disaster and thus, I had to resign myself to the fact that hipsters are devils disguised in chunky-framed glasses and Adidas Gazelles. Hipster dudes are only interested in having fat girl best friends, trust me. [And besides, unless you're diligently hip yourself, buying vinyl instead of CDs, spending all your money on Death Cab for Cutie shows and vodka, only reading books by Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer, things never turn out well with a hipster, no matter what size you are.]

About six months later, I resigned myself to posting a personal ad on Craigslist which announced my fatness rather than down-played it, thinking that this would bring an onslaught of hater emails and probably nothing more. Requisite "who you trying to fool, bitch" emails aside, there was more. A lot of guys answered, all of whom knew exactly what the word "zaftig" meant. I met my current Honey Bunny of two years from this very ad! Up until that point, I honestly had no idea that there are dudes out there that actually prefer the zaftig lady. I honestly had no idea that a guy could love me without thinking, "she needs to lose some weight."

The dating world sucks no matter what your size and sexual orientation is. As a former roommate once told me, "you gotta pad your ego, cut your losses, and just keep moving forward." Don't accept anything less than spending some fun time with a person who is truly interested in you for who you are inside and out. Don't let anyone tear down your ego just because s/he has been conditioned to reject people based on their size. Don't be afraid to end a date or relationship if the person is treating you badly.

If I can do it, you can do it!

Clothes make the wo... er, frustration

2005-09-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

Like in the realm of thinner folk, there's lots of diversity in zaftig bodies and style preferences. I find this particularly frustrating given the paltry amount of stores that do exclusively fat clothing because - in my personal experience - finding a store...

1) where the clothes suit and fit my body type
2) which offers the style(s) I like
3) and that I can afford

...I'm pretty much left with about two articles of clothing that are suitable from each vendor. Granted, this wasn't as much of a problem when I wore sizes below 26. It seems like the higher the size, the less chance of a good fit and excellent style -- and that just plain wrong if you ask me!

Of course, I admit that my body is probably alien in comparison to the women's size fit models, no matter what size I'm at. I have huge boobs, an upper torso that has seen trimmer days but is still not in proportion to the rack, a bulbous lower belly (a "second butt" as my sisters and I used to call our lovely family trait), not massive legs, a 29" inseam, and oh, did I mention no ass whatsoever? My different proportions range from size 22 to 26, and I'm somewhere between a petite pant length (which shrink to high-waters after first washing) and average length (which I can wear with heels).

Let me hear you say this shit is frustrating... f-r-u-s-t-r-a-t-i-n-g... I said, THIS SHIT IS FRUSTRATING! F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-N-G!

As badly as I'd like to spill what does work for me from the various vendors, it's kinda pointless because of aforementioned diversity. But, maybe I'll mention one little thing...

After two seasons full of "bootleg cut" jeans that really ought to be labeled "straight leg" -- and yes, I realize that straight leg is making a comeback, unfortunately for us fuller figured -- I was pleased as punch to find the newish line of jeans designed by Jessica Simpson, sold exclusively at Avenue. They hug, but don't cup, the 2nd butt! The thighs are more narrow, but the fit grazes over the fat rather than squeezes it! And the wonderful calf area/hems are a TRUE bootcut slash flare.

Praise the fashion goddesses and gods!

Welcome!

2005-09-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

I've been fat pretty much my whole life, or at least since I can remember trying to dress myself in something stylish. And you know what? It seriously sucks sometimes.

It sucks because lots of people still think it's perfectly fine to express prejudice against us fat folk.

It sucks because our dating pool (regardless of what gender you prefer) is typically lessened due to full-scale comprehensive conditioning by mass media that selects thin over fat.

It sucks because we can feel so much body shame that it's hard to get out to try new things, meet new people, have new life experiences.

Mostly, it sucks because we only have like 20 stores - several of which are on the internet only - to buy clothes from!

BUT -- what I listed above doesn't have to stop you from having a life and being a happy little fat camper most of the time. You should not, under any circumstances, buy into the culture of fat phobia! Sure, we all have our good days and our bad days in direct relation to our bodies. Sometimes you watch the Oscars and you wish like hell that you could look like Kirsten Dunst does in vintage Chanel. Other times, you're in the dressing room at your favorite fat girl store trying on the fanciest dress/jeans/lingerie/whatever your thing is, and you jump up and down with excitement because you look wicked good, and it ain't got nothing to do with the size you're wearing.

Buying in to fat phobia is believing that you're "less than" the skinny chick who is your sister, friend, coworker, a stranger on the street, or the model up on the billboard. You have just as much right to have the life you want as anyone else on this earth. Besides, chances are (sadly) that the skinny chick has serious issues with her body too.

The opposite of fat phobia is not necessarily hard-core campaigning for the rights and acceptance of fat people. I do think that every fat person should do their part to set the record straight with the people in their lives. If anyone harshes on you about losing weight, tell them that it's none of their business because seriously -- it isn't. If you want to lose weight or become more fit, then you should do it... but don't even go there just because someone tells you you "need to".

My blog will probably be on the lighter end of the spectrum, because my main interest is fashion and all that. Of course, please feel free to add comments, suggestions, tips at the end of each post, or write me an email.

Welcome to my Guide to the Fat Life!
XOXO, Zaftig Girl