My Improvisational Life

I’m making it all up as I go along.

Pure Energy at Target — a review April 30, 2009

Filed under: Fat, Randomness — joyousnerd @ 10:03 pm

Tomorrow is Relay for Life, and tonight I went to Target with every intention of buying mouthwash and band-aids and breath mints and breakfast bars in preparation. I had no plan to buy any clothes. But on a whim I wondered back to the plus size section and, lo and behold, there’s the new line I heard about just yesterday. The new line is called Pure Energy, and I will confess that when I initially heard about it I was skeptical. As a true clothing aficionado (aka “Holy crap, how many clothes do you HAVE?!?) I felt it was my responsibility, my obligation even, to do a little test drive.

The good…
-The clothes are cute. Really, sincerely cute — not as conservative as LB, not as edgy as Torrid. They are very Target-trendy.

-The prices are AWESOME. Half the price of LB for comparable items.

-There is a reasonable selection of different items, for Target at least. I still wish they would stop the rapid encroachment of maternity on the plus section, but it was better than it has been in the past.

- Some of the items seemed to be pretty good quality. This is just initial observation though, I haven’t worn or washed anything yet.

- The sizing seemed reasonably accurate. Often Target items run small in my experience, but these sizes were pretty true. They use a Torrid-style 1/2/3/4 sizing system, which I personally like, although I could see it being confusing for some people. Other items are more traditional number sizes.

The not-so-good…
-The quality on some items was terrible. We’re talking sleazy polyester and poorly sewn sequins.

-There was not a great size selection. In most items there were plenty of 1s and 2s, a few 3s, and one 4, if that. This is pretty typical of Target, at least my store.

-Some items seemed poorly designed for large women — lots of empire waists without enough booby room, for example. I am 5′6″ and wear a 26, and while everything fit, the items I tried were about 30/70 on design. That will differ considerably by individual though, obviously.

-There were many, many sleeveless tops and dresses. This is my biggest concern. I have no problem going sleeveless, but I am in the minority among women, even thin ones. Just today I had a conversation with a co-worker about how she “doesn’t do sleeveless”. I really hope Target has not doomed their new line by putting so many sleeveless pieces in. I can see the clothes not selling well just because of women’s upper-arm insecurity, and then Target deciding that there is not an adequate market for the product and pulling it. It would not be the first time something like that has happened *cough* OldNavy *cough*, after all.

Overall, I am pretty psyched. Pretty clothes for pretty fatties — yay! Now if only I could help my co-worker love her arms. Oh well, one fight at a time.

 

Right this minute, hell is freezing over. March 29, 2009

Filed under: Thoughts — joyousnerd @ 6:00 pm
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Today I went on a search for brown capri pants. I did not find any.

However.

I found a bathing suit. It fits me, it contains the rack of doom without the use of an evil underwire, and it is neither black nor brown nor blue — the holy trinity of fat girl bathing suits — in fact, it is all sorts of fun swirly colors. Top, bottom, and little skirt (cuz I love the little miniskirt bathing suit look), all for $60. On top of that, they had lots of stuff on ridiculous clearance. It was a good day to be a Target shopper.

Reason number 2 –I cooked. I tell you, right now it is very chilly in the underworld.

 

Read, and heard, and thought today. March 25, 2009

Filed under: Fat, Thoughts — joyousnerd @ 8:38 pm
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“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Maryanne Williamson
Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech (maybe)

“Don’t be too fat, or too thin, or too dark, or too light; don’t be too sexual, or too chaste, or too smart, or too dumb. Be yourself. But make sure you fit in.”
Anna, One Tree Hill, Truth, Bitter Truth

It is easy to believe that we are not enough. Not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough or talented enough. Our houses aren’t clean enough, our clothes aren’t right, our earring are too big or too small or not expensive enough, our teeth are funny looking. Our dreams and desires and the secret hopes of our hearts can’t possibly come true, why would they, as inadequate as we are.

There are those in the world whose whole existence is devoted to keeping the rest of us bound in our own insecurities and fears, and, just in case our own aren’t enough, they pile on more we never thought of.

This is, of course, all lies.

If you read this post, this is my challenge to you: today, if only for one minute of your day, defy the lies. Live the truth. Be yourself, and be enough.

Then if you want to, tell your story. I want to hear it.

 

Feast of the Annunciation March 25, 2009

Filed under: Thoughts — joyousnerd @ 7:41 am

Feast of the Annunciation Icon

Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum,
benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus.
Sancta Maria mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen

 

The unnecessary hatemongering March 22, 2009

Filed under: Fat — joyousnerd @ 1:12 pm
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According to the New York Times, the Obamas are planting a garden in the south lawn.

I find this a fabulous idea. Almost everyone, no matter their body composition, could benefit from eating more fresh foods. Gardening is awesome, even if I personally suck at it. I love that the presidential family is encouraging other people to grow their own food. They are going to be raising bees too. I hope they get chickens as well and have fresh eggs. This whole thing makes me so happy that I am tempted to try raising vegetables again, despite my failure to grow anything for the past 5 or so years.

My question — in an article about something that has so many positives, why oh why even mention the dreaded OMG FATZ plus DIABEETUS?

Oh, because the media had all been drinking the fat-hate kool-aid. Made with organically grown sugar, of course.

For example, this passage:

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.

It would have been just as effective like this:

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when many families eat too much processed and convenience food.

Or this one:

The first lady, who said that she had never had a vegetable garden, recalled that the idea for this one came from her experiences as a working mother trying to feed her daughters, Malia and Sasha, a good diet. Eating out three times a week, ordering a pizza, having a sandwich for dinner all took their toll in added weight on the girls, whose pediatrician told Mrs. Obama that she needed to be thinking about nutrition.

“He raised a flag for us,” she said, and within months the girls had lost weight.

like this instead:

The first lady, who said that she had never had a vegetable garden, recalled that the idea for this one came from her experiences as a working mother trying to feed her daughters, Malia and Sasha, a good diet. Eating out three times a week, ordering a pizza, having a sandwich for dinner all took their toll on the girls, whose pediatrician told Mrs. Obama that she needed to be thinking about nutrition.

“He raised a flag for us,” she said, and within months the girls were feeling healthier.

It’s really not that hard to make articles like this about HEALTH, not WEIGHT. I really want to believe that Michelle Obama cares about improving Americans’ health. I desperately want to believe it. That’s why it breaks my heart to see a story as positive as this one taking something so good and totally missing the point.

 

Apparently, even losers can’t win. February 17, 2009

Filed under: Fat, Thoughts — joyousnerd @ 7:26 pm
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Tonight I was at a friend’s house hanging out with her 8 month old son. After he went to bed I started flipping channels and found a show on one of those entertainment/ music channels about “skinniest celebs”. I found it a little ironic, how the same people who dish out criticism of the Jennifer Love Hewitts and Kate Winsletts of the world for being too fat were now talking about how unhealthy all these celebrities are for being too thin, and how all the media coverage was about people being concerned for their health, blah, blah blah. There were even a few people who they talked about on the show who had been “overweight” (in Hollywood terms, of course) who decided to be “healthy” and then “took healthy too far”.

What the bloody hell?

So, let me get this straight, oh great music/ entertainment peoples. This person was somehow not ok before, because they didn’t have what you deem a perfect body, and then in their quest to get that so-called perfect body they went too far and now they don’t again? Did they ever meet with your approval? Was there a magic five minutes where no one was “concerned” about these celebrities?

Um, no.

This is the problem when a culture decides that bodies, anyone’s bodies, are public domain. If it is ok to dehumanize fatties by putting their headless torsos above stories on the OMG OBEEEZITY EPUHDEMIC, then it is ok to dehumanize anyone whose body does not meet with public approval. NEver mind that no one ever really does, because there is a multi-billion dollar industry out there that exists solely to convince people they are unacceptable. Nevermind that the root of the issue lies in the pressure to have that perfect, culturally acceptable body. Not thin enough? The media, the diet and cosmetic companies, even random people in the grocery store will harass you about it, so you do crazy things to defy your own body and force it to bend to someone else’s standards, at which point those same people criticize you for doing they very thing they wanted you to do in the first place. It’s a crazy carousel of death, and there is only one way off. Ready for this? Have the courage to accept your body the way it is. Have the courage to be yourself and do what YOU want to do, anyone else’s opinion be damned. Recognize all those media messages for the bullshit that they are, and remember that it isn’t ok to dehumanize anyone, no matter the color of their skin or their physical abilities or the size of their ass or how many wrinkles they have. Get off the carousel. It’s nice out here.

 

Thoughts on love. February 13, 2009

Filed under: Thoughts — joyousnerd @ 8:01 pm
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So, it’s Valentine’s Day.   I spent most of my high school years wearing black and being passionately anti-valentine, all the while desperately secretly hoping that the next year I would be one of the ones getting flowers and big hideous teddy bears.  In college I wore less black, but I was no less disdainful and fervent and secret.  There was one memorable Valentine’s day when I helped the man I was desperately, hopelessly infatuated with, the man I would have dropped everything, including all morals and standards for, plan the perfect Valentine’s day for his girlfriend.  Even worse were the weeks afterward when I had to hear her gush about all the wonderful things he had done, all those wonderful things I had come up with and could not take credit for.   What can I say, I was pretty bloody stupid, particularly when it came to boys.

I’ve spent my life hearing variations on “just wait, it will happen when…” In the residential summer Governers’ school before my junior year of High School (yeah, I was that kid) I had a conversation about my frustration at being the perpetual singleton and was told to “just wait until your junior year, everything happens in your junior year”  Then there was just wait until you are a senior/start college/finish college/ get a job/ blah blah bitty blah.

Here’s the truth — I am 32 years old and I have never kissed anyone.  I have never dated.  And I am happy about it.

I won’t lie and say I have always been happy about it.  Sitting in my best friend’s bedroom in high school while she counted the guys she had made out with (the number wasn’t small) or in the bathroom lounge at church on Sunday morning discussing my friends’ exploits the night before (in code, no less) caused no small jealousy on my part.  It hasn’t been easy over the past several years watching my friends get married, and I have on more than one occasion struggled to force smiles at showers and rehearsal dinners and weddings and parties, and I would be lying if I denied coming home from those events and crying alone in my house.  Hell, sometimes I didn’t even make it home.  A few times I didn’t even make it to the car.

Here’s the thing — we are all taught from preschool on up that we can have anything we want if we just work hard enough.  It’s not true, but it is an integral part of the puritans, pilgrims, and pioneers pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that is so present in our culture.  So it is natural to think that you can find love the same way — by working at it, and it’s easy to think that if it doesn’t happen you just aren’t working hard enough, and then if it still doesn’t work, then there must clearly be something wrong with you to make you inherently unloveable, you big hideous freak.   It’s worse when you are fat, since you have a whole cultural norm telling you that you are, in fact, a hideous freak, and it’s OMG all your fault and you just need to eat less andexercisemoreandthenyou’dbeperfectandyouhaveSUCHaprettyface!

I would like to celebrate this Valentine’s Day by calling bullshit.

Being thin and/ or conventionally beautiful is no more a guarantee to finding real love than anything else.  In fact, I would venture to say it might be a little but of a hindrance, because there are plenty of guys who want to date hot girls just to date hot girls and aren’t at all interested in the girl herself, just her body.

Today I reread Kate’s brilliant post on finding love and dumb luck.  I think this is my favorite bit:

Single folks, here’s what I know: you are exactly what someone is looking for, and that someone is exactly what you’re looking for. You just don’t have a damned bit of control over when or where you’ll stumble across each other. That sucks a hundred kinds of ass. But you don’t have to be prettier. You don’t have to be better. You don’t even have to be patient, if you don’t feel like it. You just have to be.

I’m 32.  I can’t do one damn thing about whether I ever date, get married, have kids, whatever.  I can’t make anyone be attracted to me, and I am not willing to try and change myself into something I am not in an attempt to attain those things, because if I get them but lose myself, what’s the point?

The other day I ran into a friend I had not seen in a while and she asked if I was ever going to get married, and asked if I was dating anyone.  I was a little shocked at my reaction, which was pretty much”hunh, I hadn’t really thought about it”.  It was in the moment that I realized that all my angst was a thig of the past, and I have reached a place where I am genuinely content where I am and could not care less about “finding someone”.  If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t, and either way my life is good. It’s a pretty damn brilliant place to be.

 

In which I learn a vital, if painful, lesson. February 1, 2009

Filed under: Fat, Redemption, Thoughts — joyousnerd @ 8:56 pm
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I recently spent some time engaged in what I will politely call a discussion in the comment thread for an article in a British Magazine.   The article was about a recent finding in obesity research, and the comment thread was, to quote Motormouth Maybelle, “a whole lotta ugly comin’ at you from a never-ending parade of stupid”.

Actually, it was more than that.  It was raw, undiluted hate.  And it made me sick.

I guess I have lived in a bubble.  I am white, middle class, and college educated.  I have lived a life of privilege, and I can’t pretend that it has been anything else.  I have encountered my fair share of people who dislike me, and endured the same asshattery as any other person on the planet, plus I live in the South, so I have seen more than my share of racism, but I had never experienced anything quite like this.

I am not going to go into details, and I am not going to link to the article, because I would hate for any of my readers to get a concussion banging their head against their desk.  I will just tell you that people said, over and over again, in a variety of words that all mean the same thing, that fat people are stupid.  ALL fat people are stupid.  And they are liars.  ALL liars.  That they are delusional, that they are lazy, that they are a plague on society.  One guy said that if he ever had kids he would not allow them to play with fat kids.  One guy said twice that the person who wrote the article could not be believed because “she’s on of the obese” and that no matter what one of “the obese” writes about or what she says, it is wrong.  Once I actually got involved in the conversation those insults went from the general to the specific.   Strangers, people who have never met me or spoken to me, told me over and over and over that I was stupid, and deluded, and lying, simply because I am fat.   When it became clear that I refused to buy into their bullshit and that I was not a good little self-hating fatty, things got even more vicious.  I won’t lie, I was not always pleasant myself, I can throw around some serious sarcasm when I want to.  But I was responding to individual asshats — they had judged me to be inferior before I even stepped on the scene.

Hate is a strange thing.  It’s so completely irrational.  It is a waste of time to try to reason with it, and yet that very fact makes me want to try.  I can’t understand its blindness.  I can’t understand how some one can look at an individual and see only one characteristic about them and hate them for it.  The ratio of adipose to muscle tissue in my body has no bearing whatsoever on my intelligence, or my ability to reason, or on my value as a human being, but to those people, it didn’t matter who I was orwhat I did, all that mattered was that particular characteristic.

I don’t regret the experience I had.  It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun, but it was important.  I learned that I am stronger and more resilient than I thought I was.  I learned that what I claim to believe really is what I believe, even in the face of violent opposition.  I gained some empathy for those who have to deal with this irrational hate every day, directed at skin color or sexual orientation or religion or any of the million other things people find to blindly despise.  But I  have to grieve a little for lost innocence.  Naivete is never a good thing, but it’s loss is painful.

So thanks, all you who participated in that thread.  I have taken your hate and turned it into good, and I will pray that sometime you can do the same.

 

Douchehound of the day January 29, 2009

Filed under: Fat — joyousnerd @ 4:07 pm
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John, a lovely, gracious, and talented individual who I am sure has no issues whatsoever with self-confidence and is not at all afraid of  women, decided to drop by a send a few comments my way.  None of them made it out of the moderation queue, but I thought this one was particularly tasty.   Regarding this post, John says:

Yeah, so what? What is the problem with that? Next life, stay home and bake those cookies. Just shut up and don’t be fat.

As trolls go, John is, at least, concise.  And everything is spelled correctly!  Go John!

I wonder if John is a real, actual 9 year old boy raised by wolves under a rock, or if he has simply chosen to behave that way as an adult.

 

Disgusted. January 28, 2009

Filed under: Thoughts — joyousnerd @ 8:09 pm
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I’ve been watching Superstars of Dance.  It been…well, not bad, but not as good as I had expected.  The dancers are beautiful, but the camera work is all weird, and half the time you can’t see the dancers, either because the shot is way too wide or because they are showing audience footage instead of the dancers.  I was pretty disappointed, because I am a big fan of So You Think You Can Dance, and I expected more of Nigel Lithgoe.

Anyway.

Tonight I was watching the finals form Monday, thanks to the wonder of DVR  (which, by the way, I can’t imagine living without).  They started off talking about Michael Flatley (he’s the host) selling out stadiums and such, and how he was going to dance on the show.  It was cheesy TV host patter, but I was vaguely psyched that he was going to dance.  Then he started talking about how his parents immgrated, how hard they worked, etc, and that this dance was a tribute to the United States.  It was sort of touching.  I thought I might enjoy his performance.  Music started up — a redition of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on some flute-like instrument, maybe a fife?  Anyway, a little predictable, but I still thought it might be interesting, until  a girl walked on the stage, playing the fluty-thing.

In a bikini.

That’s right, she was wearing an effing BIKINI.  With American flag patterns on it, and high heels.  Not only that, she didn’t dance, just walked around the stage playing the fluty-thing and showing off her body.  All that was missing was a pole in the middle of the stage and guys waving dollar bills.  She walked offstage after a while and the other dancers came on stage, and I am sure they were lovely, but I couldn’t even pay attention, I was so pissed off about that damn bikini.

THIS is his tribute to the US?  A chick in flag-striped underwear strutting around the stage?   This is the tribute to a country where women have fought so hard to be respected, to have equal rights, to have a voice and be seen as human beings, not just sex objects or servants?

If that is what represents the United States, then we have failed.  Every woman who has been part of the feminist movement might as well have stayed home and baked cookies, for all the good it has apparently done.  I feel sick.