The Infernal Optimist.

“Starting Monday, I’ll be perfect.” – from ‘Starting Monday’, a play by Anne Commire

Happy New Year, to those of you who celebrate it. It’s a dreadful time of year if you’re a Fat Acceptance Funperson, since it’s difficult to escape the advertising pile-on courtesy of the weight loss industry – did you KNOW that if you eat “right” and exercise, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT (results may vary)??? If you never, ever, pinky-swear EVER eat another cheeseburger, donut, or anything involving fat, carbohydrates, sugar, or flavor, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT (results may vary)??? If you pay a company a large amount of money, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT (results not typical)! So whip out those checkbooks, chubsters, because 2009 is YOUR YEAR…TO COMPLETELY SUCK THE JOY OUT OF EATING! AGAIN!



That violently sarcastic aside out of the way, it’s also a dreadful time of year if you’re a cynic. So you can imagine the kind of brain-injuring facedesking I’ve been doing for the last few days. The approach of the New Year always brings out the “holy fucking SHIT, the second the time clicks over to 12:00:01 January 1, 2009, I am going to sprout wings, pixie dust is going to fall out of my ass, and I AM TURNING INTO A UNICORN!!!!” in people, and while I *did* turn into a unicorn, I remain extraordinarily cynical. I’m not one to see January 1 as a tabula rasa. And I tend to react poorly, if silently, to the optimists who are bound and determined to let the world know that January 1 IS a magical date and it’s a time for renewal and it’s a clean slate and you’re starting again so shut up and don’t raise that eyebrow at me, Cynical Susie, because you’ll see! I’m never 100 percent sure when an optimist throws variations of “you’ll see!!!” at me if it’s playful…or if it’s kind of threatening. It’s very easy to mentally substitute an optimist trilling “You’ll see!” all Glinda the Good Witch-style with the Wicked Witch of the West, shaking her fist and cackling, “You’ll see…how about a little fire, Scarecrow?!?!??!!”

I think part of my inability to join the Pixie Dust Club comes from being a part of a group of people who aren’t exactly legendary for getting a fair shake. Hell, go Googling for stories about fat and you’re going to see borderline vitriolic diatribes from the U.S., the U.K., and many points in between about how you, you obese beast you (or “obeast”, if you will), is responsible for a remarkable number of ills in the world and how you deserve to be shat upon from a great height to teach you lessons about “control” and living “right”. It’s rather hard for me (and keep in mind, I do only speak for myself on this here blog) to run out into Daley Plaza, joyfully twirl around in circles, and declare my love for life, the world and all of its inhabitants. (Imagine Ron Burgundy in “Anchorman” when he screams, “Veronica Corningstone and I had SEX and we are in LOVE!” and you’ll catch my vibe of just how I would do that twirling and declaring.) When you’re fat and you’re visible, the likelihood of you seeing the very worst in people is, unfortunately, high. I’ve been remarkably lucky compared to others, and when I read stories of how others have been treated in a society that loves to pride itself on being super-tolerant and so goshdurned welcoming (except when they’re not), it chews away at my soul and dials up the rage something fierce and I can’t play the Glad Game.

I’m a grownup, staring down the barrel at 37, I’ve got some coping tools to withstand the kind of nastiness other grownups are capable of throwing. If I was a fat kid or fat teen in today’s world, I don’t know that I’d be able to survive the sheer amount of “YOU ARE BAD” messages being sent each and every day. You’ve got five-year-old kids sweating over the sizes of their asses. As grownups, we know the crazy-making that dieting is, the ridiculous microscope we put on every single thing that goes into our mouths and how much exercising we do and whether that’s “good enough” and determining our worth simply through the number on the scale. Do you think saddling a child with that nonsense is “healthy”? Is it worth setting up more children for years upon years of self-hatred and torture in the name of “health” that is less about actual health and more about thinness?

I’d love it if the mainstream media and all their assorted screenworthy doctors would simply admit that so much of the demand for “health” among the world’s citizens was less about actual health and more about aesthetics. Let’s stop bullshitting ourselves. How many posts on any given message board, be it about dieting or something completely related, has anything to do with “health” and everything to do with “I want to fit into a size __”? Much like 12:00:01 on January 1 turns us into beautiful unicorns with pixie dust flittering out of our bungs, being a size ___ is the benchmark for so many of us where our lives will truly begin, where the true us will finally emerge, and our lives will be truly worth living.

It all causes me recall tales from my fat youth (no, my youth was not electric, it was fat): one of my friends smoked up to me and informed me that her mother had spotted me at some sort of school function (perhaps the school talent show, maybe me playing in orchestra as I was a first chair violist, THANK YOU VERY MUCH). The mother asked my friend, “does she (meaning me) have any friends?” My friend, bless her heart, said in that inimitable kid way, “MO-THER!!! Of COURSE she has friends!! I’M her friend!” Things like that were benchmarks for me. Whenever someone took a shot at me because I was fat, I refused to retreat to the corner and shut down because the fat kid should shut up and disappear. When I was singing a solo in the variety show in high school and had to haul ass out of the theater and boogie down the hallway in order to get backstage and two lunkheaded teen boys yelled “FREAK!” at me as I passed, I only sang louder, I only made myself more visible. Perhaps my innate defiance, despite so many really shitty times (many in the past year alone, go fuck yourself 2008), could pass as optimism. But my brand of “optimism” requires one to see the world as a place that is great for some people and crap for others, and no amount of life is a cabaret-ing can alter the inequities of the world and this society we’re in without a radical attitude change from pretty much everybody. Empty words peeled off a poster hanging in a third grade classroom or in an office (you know the ones – like the orange tabby hanging off a branch and the caption, “Hang on! Friday’s coming!”) are as empty as the dreaded calories in something that isn’t on your “good” foods list. Chances are that cynical person you know that rolls his/her eyes whenever you bust out singing "Don't Rain on My Parade" has got plenty good reason for that eye-roll. If you're going to demand we turn our frowns upside down, we demand you take a pause from chipper cause to try and understand why our eyeballs are stuck in the sarcastic position.

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A Holiday Message From Your Holiday A-Hole.

In recent weeks, I've determined that rather than being a bearer of good tidings, I'm more of a...Holiday A-Hole. Not that I'm not an A-Hole 365 days of the year, but my A-Holishness seems to kick up a few notches during the Holiday Season. So it seems fitting that I would end this year (seeing as I suspect my lazy ass probably won't blog again until 2009--SEE YOUSE NEXT YEAR HURR HURR) with some of my patented amicable irritation and rage. (It's mostly not fat-themed and wow, I am using some adult language, that is for sure.)



1. Stop bitching about not being “allowed” to say “Merry Christmas” because it’s OMG NOT P.C. Unless you have supercool mind-reading abilities that can tell you the person you’re dealing with is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist or whatev (or the person is sporting hijab, peyos, yarmulke etc.), a good rule of thumb to remember for all eternity is ERR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION. So, even though it may make your buttocks clench with fiery, righteous rage, say “Happy Holidays” if you don’t know the person’s persuasion. However, on the flip side…

2. Unless you’re wearing the garb of your particular religious persuasion (i.e. hijab, peyos, yarmulke, etc.), people can’t tell what persuasion you happen to be. So cool your jets, ace, and don’t get all hinky because someone said “Merry Christmas” to you instead of “Happy Holidays” or said “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. I had an instance of that a couple of weeks ago. A guy needed change for a five. I didn’t have change, but I did have a couple of singles, so I told him to take the singles and rock on. When he approached me on the el platform to thank me again, I said “have a nice holiday” and he admonished me for getting it wrong. “Christmas, I celebrate Christmas”. In my head I was thinking, “I want my fucking two dollars back, you jackass.”

3. If you encounter someone like me, someone who does not care for this time of year and can’t wait for it to be over, please don’t try to infuse me and my ilk with Holiday Cheer. The reasons why I don’t like this time of year are varied and would probably not make sense to you, and that’s okay because it’s none of your goddamned business. I’m perfectly content not liking Christmas. I’m not trying to dissuade you from being in love with the season. Knock yourselves out. Stop thinking it’s some sort of tragedy that I don’t like it. Stop thinking you’re going to be the one who is going to “fix it”. That kind of behavior doesn’t endear you to me. It’s off-putting and obtrusive. Don’t get passive-aggressive about it either, because that’s even more off-putting. (P.S. to a certain person: the key to passive-aggression is subtlety. You’re doing it wrong.)

4. A special message to the jackholes who were behind me at the Nine Inch Nails concert in Vegas: I HOPE YOUR COLONS FALL OUT. See, I’m one of those crrrrazy people who go to a concert to listen to the music, not to hear your conversations. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the volume level at a NIN show, let’s just say it’s like a jet engine times a motrillion. Imagine being seated in front of people who take that as a challenge to talk over the jet engine-level volume. I had Huey, Duey, and Louie yapping endlessly while getting ‘faced (yeah, you are SEW KEWL because you can drink in Vegas!) in one ear, and then JoeBob Superfan and his girlfriend directly behind me. JoeBob’s a true superfan because he owns almost all the CDs and DVDs, you know. When he wasn’t whistling at eardrum-shattering levels directly into my other ear, he was shouting along with my beloved Trent Reznor or explaining to his girlfriend the deeper meanings behind songs. It was all I could do not to turn around and offer all of them $20 a piece to shut the fuck up. Thankfully, TR brought some serious-ass rock and my lingering memories will be of him blowing the roof off the dump rather than the douchetronics seated behind me.

5. Take a day off from berating yourself for, you know, eating. There are creepy creatures out there who would tell you the Best Way To Be is to go to holiday dinners and parties with a notebook to document in detail what you put into your mouth. Nothing says “holiday fun” like whipping out a notebook to exhaustively document what you eat. And FYI: dieting doesn’t make you a saint or a better person. It just makes you boring as hell if you’re incapable of not talking about it.

6. Hey, Mom – please stop with the “my son is married and my daughters are single but VERY successful, which is fine”. It’s kind of annoying, particularly when it only applies to two of your daughters. I haven’t been put in jail, so I reckon that makes me “successful”. And it’s not “fine” for me, frankly. Let’s lead this into...

6a. Please refrain from telling me I should be grateful. I’ve discussed this before, but let me bring it up one more time since the “grateful” tends to go hand-in-hand with the whole “How can you hate Chriiiiiiiiistmissssssssss???”. For everything that I do have (friends, roof over head, employment, blah blah blah), there is always going to be a metaphorical hole in my alleged heart that is not going to be filled by friends, roof over head, employment, hobbies, blah blah blah. Platonic love, such as it is, will never satisfy me. Being the wacky asexual sidekick/third wheel doesn’t make me turn cartwheels of glee. I don’t “need” a partner/relationship. I want one. But because of whatever (anonymous commenters like to point out that I’m “angry” and that’s why I’m kryptonite to the male population of the universe), it doesn’t appear to be in the cards. You can also refrain from suggesting every dating site on the interwebs, too – I have been a busy beave over the last few months, sending out messages on a variety of sites to cats and I have not received one response. And let me again emphasize that is FINE. I understand that I am not 99.99999 percent of the universe’s bag. I get that. But don’t tell me that I shouldn’t have moments of sadness, that I shouldn’t be a touch resentful, and I shouldn’t be ANGRY that I ain’t feeling too great about being alone. Mind you, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, I am able to function, entertain myself, travel alone and I won’t be sitting in the house every weekend and I will make do until I kick off. But I will rage about it and I will raise hell about it until the day I fucking die, and if that’s problematic for you? Tough titty says the kitty. If nothing else, feel free to use me as your own lesson in gratitude. (However, I do charge for the privilege. I have PayPal.)

So that’s how I’m ending this year. I request 2008 get the fuck out of my face A.S.A.P. and here’s hoping 2009 doesn’t suck completely. Thanks for reading, and I hope you are able to find the occasional chuckle/coherent thought in this potpourri of genial raging that I do.

X X O O O

Jane
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Why we need an under-informed person tax.

New York governor David Paterson weighs in today on CNN.com about why, for the love of God and all that's holy, New York state needs an "obesity" tax--that is, a tax on sugared pop ("soda" for some of you) and juices that have less than 70 percent actual juice in them.

Here's the link to the article itself: O M G THE CHILLLLLDREN!!!!!



It's the usual song-and-dance that we're all used to - OMG the fat children are taking over OMG fat causes everything that's bad and wrong with the world OMG the only way to solve it is to tax the shit out of junk food OMG OMG OMG.

The one bit that actually is worth more than an eye-roll is this:

"To address the obesity crisis, we need more than just a surcharge on soda. We need to take junk food out of our schools. We need to encourage our children to exercise more. And we need to increase the availability of healthy food in underserved communities."

Now, of course, take out the "to address the obesity crisis" and replace it with "to address the lack of access many communities and citizens have to quality foods and adequate healthcare", and you've got something there. But instead, Gov. Paterson is, like so many ill-informed government types and regular folks, waving the OBEEEESITY EPIDEMIC!!!!! flag because panic sells. Panic is profitable. Actual information isn't sexy, people.

Let us take a moment to repeat the following: CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION.

Obesity causes serious health problems like type 2 diabetes - WRONG. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
high blood pressure- WRONG. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
high cholesterol - WRONG. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
It puts children at much greater risk for life-threatening conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer - WRONG AGAIN. CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION.

"Just as the cigarette tax has helped reduce the number of smokers and smoking-related deaths, a tax on highly caloric, non-nutritional beverages can help reduce the prevalence of obesity." No, it'll just mean that people will either pay the tax on sugared pop/pseudo-juice and CONTINUE BEING FAT or cut back on drinking sugared pop/pseudo-juice and CONTINUE BEING FAT. It's wacky how that whole thing works. I rarely drink sugared pop. I like the taste of diet pop so that is what I choose to drink. Holy shit, folks, STILL FAT.

The deliciously spectacular Kate Harding discusses it further, so have a peek. There's also a link in there leading to another quality post about how it would be so lovely for the government to invest some serious money in getting people good food, safe places to get out and gad about, and quality healthcare. It would be such a delight if the government would invest some serious time in actually making an effort to do research and for someone--ANYONE--to use some critical thinking. I mean, I know that's plumb nutty to even suggest, but I reckon it's worth a try.

Oh, and the other thing that made me snort, because PLEASE:

We must never stigmatize children who are overweight or obese.

But you already do, boss. And with more and more legislative horseshit like this, with "The Biggest Loser" and every ad for every weight-loss company, and every bit of media that screams "FAT = DEATH", you stigmatize fat kids, you stigmatize fat adults. By recycling junk science and half-truths, you're not going to magically make people healthy. You're making it clear who is acceptable and who isn't, who is worthy and who isn't, who belongs and who doesn't. Who is the enemy and who isn't. You are simply helping along a nation that already has an eating disorder spiral down the drain at an ever-quickening pace.

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On Blago, Oprah, and Other Sundry Items.

I should preface this by saying I'm not a political animal by any stretch of the imagination. I don't like debating politics in general, and the stuff that I believe is the stuff I believe, and know that my mind won't change on those stuffs, so it's folly for me to think I can change someone else's point of view. So you'll have to excuse my rather...lighthearted attitude regarding the governor of my state being, essentially, a less-murderous, big-haired Tony Soprano.



I do think it's a horrible thing, don't get me wrong--I mean, this cat was threatening to cut funding for A CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL if it didn't pony up a sizable campaign contribution, for Christ's sake. But I can't help but be hugely amused by the hubris of this guy. He knew he was being wiretapped, he knew he was under serious-ass scrutiny, and his response? "I think there's nothing but sunshine hanging over me. By the way, I should say if anyone wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it. I appreciate anybody who wants to tape me openly." Allegedly, his wife Patti can be heard in the background on the tapes, right-onning Blago's working over people for cash, dropping just as many f-bombs as he does as he angles and connives and threatens. When I heard that, all I could conjure up in my head was Carmela Soprano bringing the pie to that lawyer's office to get a letter of recommendation for Meadow to attend Georgetown:

Carmela: I don’t think you understand. I want you to write that letter.

Joan: Excuse me?

Carmela: I said I want you to write the letter.

Joan: Are you threatening me?

Carmela: Threat, what threatening? I brought you a ricotta pie and high school transcripts so you could write a letter of recommendation for my little daughter to Georgetown.

"I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden and uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing. I'm not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there." - no, not Tony Soprano...but Rod Blagojevich discussing Obama's Senate seat that HE WAS GOING TO GIVE TO THE HIGHEST FRIGGING BIDDER

Can you imagine what he could have accomplished had he used his power for good and not evil?

Meanwhile, on Oprah Watch, she kind of made me sad today. I am not an Oprah fan in the least. On a good day, she makes me grind my teeth. So when I read that SWEET MOTHER OF GOD OPRAH IS 200 POUNDS and the subsequent self-hatred she flung out there, I was simultaneously grinding and thinking, "woman, you are worth so much more than this public self-flagellation horseshit". My personal opinion of her aside, there's no getting around that she has accomplished some significant shit. There's something so...pathetic, watching a woman who has the world by the ass a) providing comedians/assholes ammunition to debase her solely based on her weight and b) essentially discounting all she's accomplished because she's *gasp* 200 pounds. And reinforcing the message that you are a failure, no matter what, if you're fat. That nothing is more important than being thin. She has millions of Oprahlytes who look to her for guidance and suggestions on how to live a better life - can you imagine what she could accomplish if she used her powers for good and not evil?

And finally, this piece on McSweeney's made me laugh this week - laugh and THINK (oooooh). It was this bit in particular:

Whoops, I don't know what I was thinking, talking about my problems when you're so much more lovably flawed.

I don't know about you, but I've had that fleeting thought more than once in my real-life relationships. I've believe I've mentioned it before, my tendency to become the zany wacky fat girl sidekick in a good 99 percent of my relationships. We've all had that friend that we believe to be prettier, smarter, better than us, the charming narcissist who will allow us that token 30 seconds to share what how we're feeling and soon navigates the conversation back to her feelings and her struggles. And because we're convinced we're not quite worth the oxygen to talk about what we might be feeling or struggling with, it becomes habit to zip it and let the lovable minx keep on yapping...and yapping...and yapping.

At some point, however, I realized it was okay for me to talk about me for a while. In fact, it was super-okay to jettison people out of my life who weren't willing to talk about me for a wee bit. It was downright kickass to give the heave-ho to people that weren't willing to support me, to comfort me, to regard me as something beyond an asexual sarcasm/heartfelt advice generator. It's cliche, but that phrase "it's not the quantity, it's the quality"? So true when it comes to friendships. It takes a while to accept that it's worth doing the dumper on people that bring us down, but holy shit, it is so...freeing. Not that I'm suggesting you should go out tonight and go on a friend-jettisoning spree, but if you're feeling like someone in your life is consistently crapping on you? It might be time to do a little housecleaning.

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But the-- and the -- oh, for the LOVE.

So I made the grave error of watching the "Sex and the City" movie Saturday night. Watching a modern-day fairy tale with the obligatory happy ending -- not the best idea I've had as of late. (Spoilers lay ahead)



I was an intermittent viewer of the show. It depended on whether or not I had HBO at any given time, basically. While I could find it entertaining, more often than not I found it baffling and irritating. But at the end of the day, I was never the target audience for a show about four single women navigating the wilds of single life in New York City because I was never a single woman navigating the wilds of single life. I never had anything resembling a "single life" (and one could quite easily argue, have never had anything resembling a "life"). If I went out with my fellow single girlfriends, I sat at the bar observing as they were talked up by the dudes. I never got very bent over whether or not I'd have a date on Friday or Saturday night because it simply wasn't something that ever happened to me. And I'm not boo-hoo-poor-me-ing, it's just the way things were. When I read advice columns (I READ WAAAY TOO MANY ADVICE COLUMNS), the agony aunts go-to advice is "OMG, ask yer friends to set you up!" Well...that wasn't something my friends did, either. Trust me, I am a tough fucking sell on a good day, I'm self-aware enough to realize that. So coming from the background that I have, watching "Sex and the City" (TV and movie) is like watching a foreign film without dubbing or subtitles or a twisted version of the "Planet Earth" mini-series. Imagine a breathless Sir David Attenborough narrating the wacky hi-jinks and heartbreaking moments of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte. Wait, I think I may have just made it more entertaining for myself.

My mood swings with the SATC movie began within the first two minutes of the narration as Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) explained that women moved to New York City in search of "labels and love". Forget advancing your career, ladies. That's not sexy. Spending beyond your means so you can have Vivienne Westwood on your hiney: THAT IS SEXY. It's SEX-AY, even. Goddamned irritating. But I sucked it up, tabled it in my head, and soldiered on. I must be honest and say that I enjoyed it here and there. I always thought Cynthia Nixon was excellent on the show and I liked her relationship with Steve (David Eigenberg). I laughed out loud hither and yon. I was generally bored with Samantha (Kim Cattrall) as I was when I watched the series and love-and-hatey with Charlotte (Kristin Davis). I thought it was rather brave of SJP (not to be confused with Super Jackpot Party) to appear on film sans make-up and looking like a woman of age when Carrie is in her post-Big-wedding-bailage depression. And my personal jury will always, always be out on whether Big's a rang-dang-diggety-douche or swoon-worthy.

But I don't know if I have enough words available at the moment for the utter ridiculousness of actual screen time being devoted to Samantha's tragic, horrific...WEIGHT GAIN. I know, I know, hold onto your hats and tell the children to leave the room, A WOMAN GAINED WEIGHT AND SHE DIDN'T STAY INDOORS SO AS TO NOT SULLY THE WORLD. Of course, the requisite "what the hell is wrong with you" scolding went down with a weak-ass side of "but we'd still love you and you'd be beautiful at any weight" and Samantha was shown scarfing down food so as to further hammer home the message that she was being shameful and lacking control. But as I reflected upon the movie later on (and tried very hard not to be irritated with my mother for fucking up my red velvet cake that I had baked earlier in the day), SATC has always talked out of both sides of its mouth. Women should be independent individuals who should take pride in their achievements and are not defined by the men they are with, but...how awfully tragic it is to be without a man and certainly without pretty shoes. Why on earth would I expect that they would avoid the silly-ass trope of a woman eating her feelings and begging forgiveness for being "bad" and "out of control"?

And why in the name of all that is good and holy did I think I wasn't going to wind up in my well-decorated and cozy pit of despair after watching a movie that in my world should have been titled "Sex (Which You Don't Have) and the City (Which You No Longer Live In Because You Are Quite the Loser--Keep On Keepin' On, Failurebritches)". To make it even worse, TBS was showing "Shrek"--you know, the HI-larious fun cartoon movie about the anti-social ogre who manages to find someone to love him. OF COURSE I COULDN'T TURN THE CHANNEL. I had to blubber through John Cale's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and simper through Shrek coming to Fiona's rescue at the wedding and spew firehose-strength tears as they proclaimed their love for each other. The best thing - THE ONLY THING - I could do at that point? Grab my DVD of "Aliens" and revel in a movie that contained nary a whit of romance and an absolute fuckton of...well, "Aliens".

The lesson learned (yet one more for the "Life Lessons" folder)? Avoid movies that have "Sex", "Love", "Sweet", or "Heart" in the title; limit viewing to movies that contain many explosions, some car chases, and enormous amounts of martial arts; and just keep watching Discovery. Never turn away from Discovery if I can avoid it. "Mythbusters" will not break my heart.

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Pardon me if my party hat's not on.

When I think about achievements one could muster up in life, I can dream up many things: having a book published, passing a difficult test, getting a promotion at work. Losing weight through dieting will never be one of those things I will muster up praise for.

I can’t clap my hands and say “yay!!!!” for the kind of mental trauma people put themselves through, counting calories or points and berating themselves and kicking their own asses around the block and then some if they don’t do everything just so on any given day. I can’t say “bully for you” when you talk about how hideous you look and how terrible a person you are because your thighs don’t look like a supermodel’s. I won’t encourage self-hatred. I won’t congratulate self-abuse. I won’t lead a cheer for obsession.

If that makes me a bad person or if I'm overreacting or if I'm mean-spirited, so be it. My disinterest won’t stop you from beating yourself up for not being the “real you” you think is lurking somewhere underneath your skin since there are many, many more people in the world that are willing to fall over themselves to give you kudos for weight loss. You can mutter I’m jealous because I’ve obviously “failed” and “given up” and don’t have “control” (oh, that mystical “control”). You won’t be the first person to tag me with that, believe me. I’m jealous of assorted people for many reasons, but not of the mindset that is inevitable when it comes to dieting for the purposes of weight loss. I did my time angsting over the size of my ass and it’s not a place I ever care to go back to again. If I learned anything, it was that the ever-elusive happiness that I still seek isn’t going to appear if I whittle myself down to a socially acceptable size. Satisfaction with my life won’t come simply because I can shop at a straight store. The issues that I have creaking in my cranium aren’t going to go away if I boogie down to the local J. Craig and get my salt-laden crapfeast on.

There’s a scary percentage of people who would rather get hit by a truck than look anything like me. In a life where any number of things can go horribly, horribly, horribly wrong, where we can suffer so much loss and hurt and hate and misery...really? Being hit by a truck is preferable? But I’m the one with the problem. Hmm.

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Come out, come out, wherever you are.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m an advice column reader. I’m fascinated by people’s issues and what sort of solutions are proposed to them by both the columnist and (if the website has comments enabled, a’la Salon) readers. For better or worse, I tend strongly toward trying to solve my own issues, which…has…worked out so well? *ahem* Anyhoo, I read Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post and this particular nugget caught my eye:



Part One and then the follow-up (thank Christ for posting it the same day as I’m stumbling through trying to express my thoughts): Part Two

Read it and then come back. I’ll wait.

I’m of two minds on this particular subject, which in and of itself is quite vexing at present. On the one hand, I’m super-annoyed in general by the “oh sweet lord God you don’t mean to TELL ME…THAT SHE GAINED WEIGHT?!?!?! *trumpets of doom*” tone from both Carolyn and the letter-writer (let’s just say the letter-writer would not be a winner-winner-chicken dinner in my book with his need to emphasize just how HOT his fiancée was and the lackluster tap dance of “well, it’s not the ONLY reason…HOT!”). Carolyn’s is, of course, playing the Concern Troll. But on the flip, I’m kind of feeling the “presenting a false front” angle. I understand the irritation—NOT the primary reason he wants to jettison his fiancée, but the irritation at being hornswaggled, PLEASE NOTE in glittery text and fiery exclamation points. I swear I will get to the fatness angle eventually (you know it takes me 18 hours to arrive at a point – pack a lunch). I feel it with women who intentionally present themselves as less intelligent so as to appeal to men—a friend of mine called it her “cute and stupid” persona. I much preferred it when she’d use her far more interesting and honest “smart and wicked sense of humor and still remarkably adorable” persona (thankfully, her honest self won out when she met her husband – they’ll be celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary on Halloween). I feel it with men who gamely trail behind their wives/girlfriends at various activities or events that they’d much rather not be involved in, but feel like they “have to”. I mean, maybe I’m pie-in-the-skying, unrealistic and dumb, but if my Imaginary Boyfriend didn’t like the Cure, I’m not going to demand (either right out front or passive-aggressively) he go see the Cure with me because I’m a damn grown woman and I can go to a goddamned concert by myself. Or I can go shopping by myself. Or I can go to the movies by myself. Or any number of activities that my Imaginary Boyfriend might not be interested in, and vice-versa. To me, that’s logical and fair. In my head, I would have enough in common with my Imaginary Boyfriend (I really should give him a name one of these days) that we could unite in doing the things we both like to do and not have snitters over doing things on our own or with friends that does not include our partner. However, my learnings from the internet, advice columnists, and hearing tales from my friends who have non-Imaginary spouses/partners would tell me that there seems to be no place for my logic. Personally, I would find it weird and wrong to pretend to be interested in my Imaginary Boyfriend’s hobbies/activities if they weren’t compelling to me. If I pretended to be super into spelunking simply to attract a mate, imagine how fucked I’d be when the time came to don my helmet with the shiny light on top and receive the request to belay somebody. It would be a sad day at the cave, my friends. A very sad, tragic day.

But to get back to the OMG FAT BRIDE thing for a mo’...it’s a tough friggin’ sell in my book to screech “I didn’t get what I bargained for (i.e. my fiancée didn’t stay what I consider to be HOT)” and put on a show for sympathy, no matter how hard Carolyn's on board with his boo-hooing. When I think about whom I might marry one day and all the things that might change about him physically or personality-wise, I think finding out he bricked his pet cat into the basement wall or he had a shoebox full of heads of women that he was acquainted with and had meticulously carved out of photographs that he would then paste onto centerfolds from porn magazines and masturbated to every day* would be a much bigger dealbreaker than him putting on 40 pounds after engagement-ringing me. But the brawl between those who think it’s acceptable to lose their shit over their significant other putting on pounds and those who think that attitude makes them superficial jerks will rage for all eternity. The only thing any of us can hope is that we stay as far away from those men and women and let them impose their regulations on each other.

But then it makes me think about other shit, about men and women tiptoeing around what they look like, particularly in the online dating universe. It’s fucking nerve-wracking as hell winging up photographs of oneself on a dating profile, let alone pictures that are in focus, not taken in shadows, and not cutting oneself off at the chest line so as to minimize what one imagines being one’s worst “flaws”. I spent quite a while deciding what pictures I was going to put on my various profiles floating around the ether. The most important thing to me was being up front about my appearance, and I realized I’ve always been like that. Way way way back when, when I first got internetting, I was a weekend fixture in the X-Files chatroom on AOL (I’d say...1995-ish, perhaps). I didn’t have internet access or a PC at home, so I’d truck out to my parents’ house every weekend to “visit the parents” but mostly to bullshit with online friends about "The X-Files". A fellow took something of a shine to me and I was quite frank that I was a fat girl. The one thing I remember the most about the entire silly situation was his insisting that I was lying in order to “test” him or that I was exaggerating when I said I was built like a linebacker. It pissed me off that he was insinuating that I was trying to garner sympathy by being the sad clown fat girl or fishing for compliments somehow because I was simply being my special brand of honest. I don’t like surprises, and I don’t like surprising others (except with, say, a Hallmark card or a Tower of Treats from Harry and David). So my pictures at my dating profiles feature how my face double-chins when I smile, my semi-slouchy posture, my belly, my smallish rack. I’ve only one picture where I’m wearing make-up because I rarely wear it. I don’t want to come away with a story where I wind up meeting a guy for tea and the first thing I see is his face falling at the sight of me. I want to screen out fellows that aren’t down with my appearance. And I don’t want to bullshit someone into thinking I look like someone I’m not. I understand the fear men and women have. Christ, do I ever. We all want to appear like the most fabulous cats to ever walk the earth. But if you’re going to kick off a potential relationship with fear-based fudging, what good is that? Where’s the honesty in it? And it makes me think: what else aren’t you telling me? What else am I in for?

Look, I’m absolutely a huge proponent of the inner being more important in the long run than the outer. I would hope whatever man that might dig me would be hot for my brain and my carcass. But I’m not willing to hide myself or disguise myself because that is what we are told to do every single fucking day. All of us, not just the fats. The message is clear every single day that our basic selves, with the zits and the rolls and the receding hairlines, will not do and that we must change, change, change in order to meet that ever-elusive standard of “good”. Instead of aspiring for that mysterious good, I’d love for everyone to show themselves, and show themselves without the self-deprecating commentary (“uggh, I look terrible in that picture/it’s 50 pounds ago/I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep the night before/I’m so old”) that we’re conditioned to throw down.

Show yourselves.

(in comments, even!)


*true story...(didn't happen to me, but to someone I know)

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