Owning it

So, as the seven readers of this blog already now, I'm back in the land where I'm from visiting my family for a spell. Visiting is always complicated, maybe others disagree, when you're visiting someplace you had lived for quite a long time. There are lots of people and places you want to fit in and not a lot of time and schedules have to be taken into account and it is a delicate balancing act (which makes visiting not always the best form a vacation can taken since you end up getting up early and running around and driving...so much driving. I digress.)

Anyway, on this little trip home I had the opportunity over the weekend to go shopping with my Mother and my sister, which is always a good time. We tried stuff on and laughed and found some really nice pieces on sale (My Mom and I ended up picking out and then buying the same endless scarf, but in different colors). We were in a store that we've all been to together before, but probably not in at least a year and I turned to my Mother and I said, "Where are the fat girl clothes?" And, she was surprised by the question. I think she responded with, "The plus sizes are that way." and then she said something like, "I didn't want to use that word."

I love my Mom, she's great. And, she's also struggled with weight and body image so I know that she's sensitive to these issues and she'd never want to do anything to hurt my feelings. I appreciate that. It is nice knowing that people do take your feelings into consideration. But, I'm at this point in my life where I just want to own it. I want to use words to mean what they mean and not pussyfoot around the pragmatics of things. I'm a fat girl. And, you know, I don't feel bad about it. I'm also a smart girl and a funny girl and (shock) a healthy girl who eats a lot of vegetables and a not-to-be-trifled with girl and making an effort to save people's feelings and avoid the word 'fat' for so long as made a big deal out of being fat. And, while my size might be one of the most obvious things about me visually, it is actually one of the least important things about me in total. I feel like there should be more of the bigger picture taken into consideration.

Gym Incentives

I'm convinced my body is falling apart (and I'm only 31).

My joints hurt all the time (all the time and anything from my neck down). If I go to the doctor, worried that taking my creaky self to the gym will make something worse, I'm told the joint pain is because I'm overweight.

Thank you, Captain Obvious. I'm so glad I paid my co-pay for you to tell me something I already know and while we're on the topic of being overweight I am not so morbidly obese that mere walking will cause arthritis. I'm fat because I have enough joint pain to make a trip to the gym worrisome (at least worrisome for me, I'm a worry-wart).

I haven't been dancing this semester because the department was getting audited - in retrospect probably a good thing because my back turned into one giant problem back in February - so my activity has been limited to stretching on days when I can actually reach my toes.

In short - I need to remember to get my worry-wart, achy, creaking, too-lazy butt to the gym (I'm not a wuss, really, but I'd like to avoid any and all joint replacements in the future so I'm a little paranoid).

As incentive, I bought new running shoes today. Buying shoes (as much as I like pretty heels and kicky sneaks to the max) is problematic for me. Bunions, tendonitis, high arches, and a poopy right ankle make me overly picky about what goes on my feet. I tend to buy Nikes almost exclusively because they have enough toe room and arch support without the shoe getting too big in the heel (I really prefer Shox, which protect my knees on heel strike, but they're too expensive and almost never on sale). I bought Triax+ after trying on a boat-load of shoes* - as an added incentive I decided to splurge and get the Nike+ chip for my iPod. It will add up my running time and distance so it's a little more fun than just plain, old running shoes.

So shoes plus chip/iPod adapter was about $120 - maybe I'll try them out this evening once my knees stop screaming at me for making them carry full Rubbermaid tubs up and down the stairs multiple times today.

*Scheel's was pretty busy today with a lot of people in buying shoes...but I was the only one to take a couple of light jumps and running steps to test out each pair for fit/performance. The pair I wound up buying I actually tried and tested three times. Everyone else would put a pair of shoes on, stand up, sit down, and decide "yes" or "no" that way. How do you people do that? What if the shoes slip when you walk? You wouldn't want running shoes to slip! Or rub or pinch your toes. Blows my mind.

DEATHFATTY ON A BICYCLE!

So, this tumblr site which used to be called "Fuck Yeah, Deathfatties!" has been a great source of inspiration to me. Here are all these fine women, doing their thing and looking fucking awesome while doing it and it is so nice to have a place where you can look and see all different body types and shapes instead of what is our cultural standard.

I was finishing up an errand earlier today and it was gorgeous out. The plan had been to run my errands and then go have ice cream, but I changed my mind. I came home and I got on my bike. I thought I would take a spin around my neighborhood. What I did was find a back way that connects to the bike trail that is sort of near my house. Since I found the trail, I figured, what the hell, let's actually ride on it for a little while.

The trail itself winds along a creek and goes for about five miles. I rode about half of it. I then took a different route home. And, while I was riding I had a funny little thought, "Oh my. Its a Deathfatty on a bicycle. Look out, World!"

I had another thought while I was riding, too. I understand that there are a lot of health issues that are caused by long term obesity, but I can't help but think that our obsession with appearance is a major contributor to that. How many people don't work out because they're so ashamed of how they look? How many other deathfatties weren't out bike riding today, not because they didn't want to but because they know they are out of shape and they are embarrassed about that.

I will admit that I get embarrassed when I go for a ride or a walk and I come back practically panting and red-faced. But, I keep doing it because I actually enjoy it. It feels good to move. I wonder if we focused more on that and less on appearance, if the "fat problem" would be as much of a problem.

Fictional Eaters

Time, she can creep by without any call to notice her.


But, that's not what I wanted to write about. Part of my Pop Culture Homework Assignment for the summer was to watch The Gilmore Girls. (What a Pop Culture Homework Assignment is and the fact that its not been the summer for ages will not be things I discuss in this post. ;) ) Its a good show; its funny. The Gilmore Girls is that tale of a single Mother and her teenage daughter and it chronicles the lives of the ladies from the last two years of high school for the daughter through her college years. The show is full of rapid-fire, clever dialogue and this is likely part of its appeal. And, that's all fine. But, there was at least one thing I found troubling about the show: the amount of food the two main characters eat.


They make a joke about how they are famous eaters and often show them ordering large amounts of crazy things. You'll see Lorelai (the mother played by Lauren Graham) leave the local grocers with a huge nachos and a slurpee or Rory (the daughter played by Alexis Bledel) and her boyfriend will joke about the look on the waiter's face when she's ordered 14 different high calorie things at a restaurant and finished them all. In the show, they are shown sitting on a squash court having a chat and Lorelai once uses an old gym membership card to pick a lock ("Did you ever go?" "No, I'd just had Rory and I was embarrassed by the baby fat.") and there is an episode where Lorelai rides her bike to work because her car has died. Aside from that, these women are never seen exercising or going to or coming from a gym or eating a vegetable.

Now, this confuses me. Since they never had a story arc about someone over-exercising or having anorexia, it doesn't surprise me that their diets/lifestyle choices weren't something that was really discussed or shown. But, it seemed in the show that their eating was something that was portrayed as a quirk of the characters, or a cute character trait that was utterly adorable and that any man would find attractive. The message seemed to be, "Skinny girls can eat whatever they want, and its adorable." Which, I don't think was the intent of the writers, but it still makes me uncomfortable. Its interesting to me that a show that has many feminist leanings would be so blatant in its reinforcing of this one stereotype.

Body Image and a Project I'm working on

So, I've been working on this thing. I joined one of those Flickr, 365 self-portraits in 365 days on my birthday this year. This is picture 43. The idea for this project grew out of a "powerful women" idea that I had way back in the day when I still lived in Iowa City and worked at a bookstore shelving magazines. The original thought was that people in general are involved in many narratives and we use these narratives to build our conception of ourselves. And, I'm interested in women in particular because I feel like one of the things that smart, strong, successful, powerful women do is perform the parts of their identity that they think are the most important, that they want to be the most salient in such a way that it can't be ignored. That you see what they see because, for lack of a better way to put it, they are such masters of appearance that they allow their interpretation of whatever feature is relevant to be not only a violable option, but the most likely option were you to talk or think or come up with a notion about them. So, How do you do that? And, how do we, as individuals decide (if we decide consciously at all) what is most important about ourselves and how do we then make that something other people see and think is important, too. This interests me.


So, the original idea was to sit down with awesome women that I know and interview them and discuss image and how they like to be perceived and how they try to make their ideas about who they are known, but for now I'm my guinea pig for these 365 days and then we'll see where things go after that. This picture is the furthest out on a limb that I've been during this project. I hope to get more adventurous (and better at lighting and angles) as time goes on. The idea behind this one was stple, I find a nice soak in the bath with a book to be a most enjoyable experience. And, part of that experience is adding a little extra hot water to the tub when it cools down a bit. For some reason, it makes me think a little bit about Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch, only she'd be sitting in a cool bathtub because it was just so hot in New York. I guess this means that the photo (since, yes, I just compared myself to Marilyn Monroe) may be inadvertently sexy. But, that wasn't the intention.

True Story.