FatAndFeisty's Xanga

Oh yeah, I have a Xanga...

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 11:57:25 GMT

Ok, seriously, I am going to try to get back to journaling here. I've been back at Livejournal, a very addictive place mostly because of the communities and commenting functionality. It 's just easier to make friends there and have conversations. Oh well. Really, I'm going to try.

Here's the other thing I've been doing lately- I've discovered "Squidoo" and become a "Lensmaster". Lenses are like modular web pages (with almost no design options- it's all about content) created to focus (Get it? Lenses?) on one concise topic. They're fun, and can make money too. I've only done three but I'm enjoying them quite a lot. Here they are, for the bored/interested--

Romancing the Geek
Games and the Geeks That Love Them
How To Be A Fangirl

Enjoy! I'll be back soon, I promise! Maybe even with a real entry!!

Random Life Stuff

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:55:50 GMT

Whew! My new recipe website is launched. There's nothing there now except one recipe on the front page, but I'll be getting others up soon.

I put on some Google ads, partly to help pay for the site and partly because it's mostly still empty and the ads take up some space- and since they're mostly for recipe sites hopefully people won't find them obnoxious.

I really love all these summer storms we've been having, as long as I don't have to walk in them.

I went to the gym yesterday, the first time since last Friday. It's like the Fates conspired to keep me away for the last two weeks- first that weird thing with the tendons in my left foot hurting, and as that healed my Achilles tendon started acting up, and then my knee. Finally I seem to be back to normal, last night's workout felt really good. I was going to go today but I was so close to getting the website done-- hopefully I can go tomorrow, and if not I will definitely go three days between Thursday and Sunday.

I've got an interview for the job I've been temping at for almost a year. The problem is that interviews make me nervous! It would actually be less awkward if it were a normal interview with strangers who I'd never see again if I don't get it, but I have to interview with my boss, her boss, and the office staff (I'm hoping they don't make me do that one- it's usually so everyone can meet the person and give their two cents about whether they like them and could get along with them). Then, if I don't get it, I not only have to see everyone every day, but I have to work with the person who got the job instead of me! I need to find a way to make this fun, but so far I can't think of anything. It might be tomorrow, and if it's not then it's next Thursday or Friday. I'm not sure whether I want more time to prepare or just to get it over with.

I need some tricks to get traffic to the new website quickly. It usually takes about three months for Google to pick something up. Hmm, have to do some research. Too bad work gets in the way of all these things I want to do! Life would be so much more fun if I didn't have to have a JOB!

I'm most of the way though Season 2 of The 4400. I'm so totally hooked. This is better than Lost.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:40:46 GMT

I seem to be going through something very weird here. A few relevant points you won't know unless I put them up front here-- #1, EK loves to shop and help me buy clothes, so it's not about disinterest in the subject. #2, he hates the feeling of lipstick/gloss/chapstick so much he won't kiss me if I'm wearing any. #3, I rarely wear any makeup at all unless it's a special occasion or I'm in one of those "I should try harder to look nice/professional" moods.

We just went to my cousin's wedding, and something that's been brewing for a while sort of came to the fore. I borrowed a dress to wear from an old friend of mine who is about the same size as I am, or used to be till she lost a bunch of weight. I thought, when I put it on the first time, that it was the *perfect* dress and I couldn't imagine anything better. I've spent quite a lot of time looking at clothes over the years, especially since we just had a semi-informal wedding in 2002 when I think I looked at every "nice" plus-sized dress on the entire internet. The point being, I know what I like and what I think is flattering on me and what makes me feel attractive. So here's this borrowed dress- black with fluttery cap-sleeves and a squared neckline with a slightly cowl-y thing going. Exactly the right length, curving to my waist (such as it is) and hips and if my belly were a little flatter it would have draped nicely (belly-squishing undoes took care of that for the wedding). I love the look of my cleavage peeking out of the neckline, fairly modest but teasing, and the vertical spray of green and purple flowers toward the bottom of the right-hand side of the skirt. It's a sexy dress, but classy. I love it so much I'm going to offer to buy it from my friend. The night of the wedding I did full makeup for the first time in at least a year- eyeshadow, liner, blush, lipstick, mascara. Dark red lipstick to be exact. My hair came out curly and perfect. I looked HOT.

The first person to tell me so was the elevator man when we arrived at the wedding.

The first person to tell me should have been EK, and the second should have been my mother, whose car we went in.

So here's the problem. I love this dress, but I love compliments from my husband too. He's entitled to his opinion,-- which includes that I look "silly" in makeup and that that particular dress is only "eh, it's ok" -- so do I wear something I find sexy and he doesn't? Do I wear makeup so I think I look good but he won't kiss me? I don't want to be one of these women who dresses to please a man-- yikes!!! Or lets his opinion control what I do with my hair or put on my face... but at the same time I do want him to like what he sees when he looks at me. Frankly, there's not a lot of point in getting myself in a sexy romantic mood if he's not going to reciprocate. I don't need to do it "for myself", I need to do something that works for both of us. Because unless I'm going to start looking elsewhere to get laid, getting dolled up in a way that makes me happy and makes him think "eh, it's ok" is a waste of time.

It's true that he isn't very expressive about these things most of the time anyway, but when I ask outright and get a lukewarm response, part of me wants to say, "Oh, well then what would you like me to wear/look like?" - and that makes me feel like the worst "feminist" ever.

The Fat Female Experience

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 15:58:34 GMT

Found this on Big Fat Blog. A woman is writing a book on being female and fat-- self-accepting, not self-accepting, midsize, supersize, every size. She's looking for women to interview and they seem to be coming out in droves, which I think is interesting-- how much we want to share our stories (by the way she says she's interested in everyone, whether or not you think you have a "story" to tell or not). But we all do, don't we? Has anyone ever grown up with a perceived "difference" and not been wounded by it? Some of those wounds heal well and quickly and the evidence is barely visible, for others the road is long and the scab torn off many time, eventually leaving a large swathe of tough scar tissue, disfigured and without feeling.

Our stories are like prayers. We seek comfort and validation in repeating them, confessing our sins and those perpetrated against us. "I lied to get out of gym class." "I haven't worn shorts since I was nine." "I only have sex with people I'll never see again." "The waiter raised his eyebrows when I ordered dessert." "My mom said nobody'd ever love me."

The irony is that body hatred is so ingrained in us that we'd have to look like Callista Flockhart not to have it. I take that back. The slimmest, most beautiful women have it- not always about their weight, but about something. The size of their hands or the shape of their lips, their slightly crooked front tooth or the way their breasts refuse to stand up quite as straight as they did at sixteen. Surgery will fix noses, breasts, saggy bellies, and those little pouches of roundness on hips and thighs. Meanwhile there's botox for the forehead and injections for facial creases betraying our age, paint for the face and the fingernails, and dye for the hair. Even if we've done all that, are our teeth white enough? Is our breath fresh enough? Skin soft enough? Do I need feminine odor protection??

As long as we believe that our value lies in our appearance- and even those of us who don't believe that on the surface have been infected with the idea, I think it's impossible to live in this society and be immune to it- we'll always have that "lesser-than" feeling. And as long as women think we have to work on our appearance to maintain or increase our value as a human being, our focus will be on that, instead of on what we ought to be doing, which is taking over the world- and that is the way they like it.

I watch The Apprentice, and it's really driven it home to me that to get ready to appear in the world of business a man has to shower, shave, put on a suit and comb his hair. Meanwhile, the women have to deal with all kinds of elaborate "fixing" of their face, their hair, their jewelry. Just the fact that a woman who appears at a meeting without makeup would stand out like a sore thumb as "unfinished" looking and inappropriate-- it makes me truly crazy to think about it. It's made me realize that I've been taken less seriously in business because I don't wear makeup or the "right" clothes or "do" my hair. It's hurt me professionally, financially, yet I don't know which would be more painful- living with that knowledge or betraying myself by doing what's expected.

Just how much acceptance?

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:37:24 GMT

I'm in a pickle.

The only fat I can't completely accept seems to be my own.

I've been okay with myself for a number of years now. I weighed 170 or thereabouts for most of my adult life, and it felt like "me". Clothing and trying to attract the romantic partners I wanted occasionally led me to grumble about wanting to be just a size or two smaller, but I've never in my life tried to be - or even really wanted to be- a "normal" size. In 1998 I met my soulmate, and after that only my steadily-ballooning boobs and the near-impossibility of walking into a store and buying pretty, comfortable, well-fitting bras would regularly bring me to tears wishing I had the willpower to diet myself down to some prior size-- invariably a size that had seemed huge at the time but would now be more than acceptable.

Then I turned 40. A lot of things happened that year, not the least of which was opening a store with my husband and getting an office job I go to during the day. For the last 15 months I've been working in an office that has a big, irresistible box full of candy from which we refill the hospitality candy dish, as well as a number of women who love to bake and bring treats for others, and where conferences and meetings are typically over-catered and the leftovers delivered to our office for consumption. To top it off, the hours we work at the store have created a "Super Size Me Diet" for my husband and me, where dinner every night is some kind of takeout, and breakfast/lunch on the weekends as well. We simply have no time to cook, we're only home long enough to sleep, and there are only so many damn Lean Cuisines a person can eat.

To make a long story short? I've gained 35 pounds in a year- and I'm horrified. That's 20% of my previous weight, and I'm only 5' tall. I hate the way I look, I hate the way it feels. My body doesn't know what to do with this much extra baggage piled on so quickly, and it's rebelling in the form of swollen ankles and pain in my knees. I'm not feeling judgemental about it, or depressed, or unattractive (ok, I hate the new jutting belly and the big round double chin, but still!) but I also don't feel like me.

The solution? I'm breaking my several-years-long resolution never to diet again (we all know most diets fail- and of the ones that "succeed" something like 95% of the people regain the weight plus more within 5 years) and drastically cutting back on sugar and thinking hard about what to get when we get food evenings and weekends. I can feel justified in that because all that refined sugar is terrible for anyone, and so is the fast-food junk food. So it's not really a DIET diet, like Atkins or something. I'm just eating healthier. I know the BFB folks would totally vilify me for this because weight loss is the intention, but fuck it I want to feel like ME again! We also joined a gym that's only 5 doors down from our store so going is easy- just hop over, change clothes, work out and back to work! Hopefully that will help, and can't help but be good for me. If you look up the word "sedentary" in the dictionary, my picture is there. We're working so much that taking the dog for a mile walk is a big event. I mean really big, like we've done it about twice. So stay tuned-- I've lost my Feistyness and turned into a dieting sheep, but maybe I can make you laugh once in a while along the way. That would make it worth it.

Just a freak?

Tue, 30 May 2006 04:09:57 GMT

Damn, I haven't posted since October? LiveJournal really is addictive, even though the fact that most of my friends on there are people I know in real life keeps me from posting anything really personal... for which I come back to the anonymity of Xanga. I think I gave this URL to a couple of people way way back when, but hopefully they aren't checking it anymore.

I've got all these things on my mind lately about how I'm "just not normal". When my husband and I decided to get married, I'll admit I teased him into making a "real" proposal (he did an admirable job and spoke from the heart)- but we both knew we wanted to get married and that we would get married. I mean, in this day and age, isn't that a decision couples make together? That's what makes sense to me. The whole traditional thing where a guy buys a ring and asks the girl if she will be his bride, at which she bursts into squeals, dons the ring and runs around to her mom and her girlfriends showing them that she is now Engaged... I just can't believe that people still do it. Aren't they both adults? Are they equals in the relationship or not? Is it really still up to the man to decide he wants to marry this girl and her job to be thrilled that someone wants her and her life now has meaning because he's found her worthy and she will soon be Someone's Wife? Mrs. Wilbur Barleycorn? Property?

Two of my friends... acquaintances? Somewhere in the middle really. Anyway, two women I know received proposals this weekend, accompanied by pretty little diamond rings. I'm finding myself half irritated, half envious-- irritated that two competent adult women (both of whom have been married before) are falling into the Princess Thing. There's something about being Proposed To that - in my mind- temporarily transforms them from mature, intelligent, self-sufficient adults to little girls dressing up as Princesses because isn't that what every little girl is taught to want to be? Our goal in life, the fairytales say, is to find a Handsome Prince who will marry us and love us forever so we will live Happily Ever After and nothing bad will ever happen again. The big question, of course, is why do I care if they want to live the fairytale for a bit? Or is the real question why I seem to be the only woman on the planet who doesn't want to be a Princess? That's the one I find more interesting. (Oh, the half envy part? That's just that EK and I have been working a zillion hours and been married more than four years and been together for over seven and who's got time for romance? New, heady flowery romantic stuff is fun, and I miss it. No big mystery or neurosis there.)

I've never aspired to being a Princess. Maybe when I was very small, but not that I remember. For one thing, they're all blonde and willowy and I'm short and dark-haired and overweight- so I guess I always knew it wasn't possible for me. They're always the center of attention and I don't like to be looked at. They're beautiful and I'm certainly not. Why waste time fussing with clothes, and hair and makeup? It won't help. I'll always just look like me, and do I really want to put on someone else's face to attract people? Isn't it better to find people who like my face the way it is?

Besides, wearing makeup makes me feel like an imposter. A phony. And then I find myself resenting the fact that this is expected of women- men get to throw on a suit and they're done, while we have to put together "outfits" and wear the right shoes and accessories and "do" our hair and paint our faces just to look normal. Just for a regular day at the office (or for some women I know, a trip to the grocery store.) So I walk around looking dowdy, and plain, and unfashionable, and fat, and feel angry at all the women who look "right" because it doesn't occur to them to question society's expectations.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Sun, 28 May 2006 16:24:58 GMT

Sorry, I know this is a lame "entry", but I'll be back soon I promise. Things have been a little wacky lately.... but free Premium for life? I'll take a shot.

Solving this jigsaw puzzle and posting about this U.S. Cellular sweepstakes makes me eligible for free Xanga Premium for life...

Friday, October 07, 2005

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:20:01 GMT

I've been thinking for quite some time- I may even have blogged about it- that being plain looking is really a blessing. It's not just a weight issue, although that certainly helps, but even if I were thin I'd be nothing much to look at. Brown hair, brown eyes, jewish nose, no visible cheekbones or jawline. Just bleh. And that's okay. Because how can the beautiful girls ever tell if someone dates/loves/fucks them for themselves, or for their beauty? Maybe they don't care? Beauty is currency, maybe that's good enough? Maybe it's what they want.

Maybe it's all in a person's upbringing, the values they absorbed from their family. I imagine there are women out there who were praised as children for looking pretty. Positive reinforcement; I swear, we're just big lab rats with clothes and television. Anyway, some parents make a fuss about little girls in pretty frilly dresses, and later in their cheerleader uniforms or prom gowns, right? Families who teach their kids that looking good is important? That it will buy them the things they want, be that popularity, possessions, or prestige?

In my family, smarts were where it was at. By the time I got to college, and all the way through and for a long time after, I was accustomed to being one of the brightest people in the room. I took it for granted, the way the girls I see on reality dating shows take for granted that they're "hot" and this guy (and the thousands more watching on TV) will want them. I'm not always the smartest person in the room anymore, but that's okay. It's made me think about something a little differently.

I've always believed that being loved for your looks was something apart from being loved for yourself, for who you really are. Conversely, someone who loves you for your intelligence or mind is seeing and appreciating the real you. One love obviously better than the other. One perspective (now) obviously colored by one family's values.

So the other day it occurs to me-- and I have no excuse for not seeing it before, except that we're all brought up to labor under different prejudices and apparently those were part of my family legacy-- that a high IQ is no more (or less) the "real me" than the perfect face and figure other women are gifted with. No more. No less. Both accidents of birth, genetic, like Mendel's peas. No energy, work, intent or accomplishment required. Brains and Beauty are equal. My mind reels.

So back to my original premise, that I'm lucky because I'm loved for myself-- that just went flying out the window, huh? Well it did-- and it didn't. I'm not sure how to get around to this gracefully, I guess that's not my style. Have you ever seen a picture of a movie star in one of those tabloids, when they get caught going to the store for milk, or just getting back from jogging? We all love those photos, because they prove that the Beautiful People are human after all, that underneath the makeup and wardrobes and good lighting, they look a lot like the rest of us. A little (or a lot!) thinner, maybe better bone structure, that genetic part they were born with -- but the rest is all ... artificial. Crafted. Wrought. In other words, anyone can do it. Maybe not exactly, not perfectly, but there's an element of it that Mendel had no hand in.

Which brings me to the crux of it. If "who we are" isn't what we look like (as I've said all along) and it's not based in our intellect (as I'm beginning to accept), what is it? Where is it? How do we know if our friends and lovers value something about us we can feel like we own?

One word: Choices.

Mushy exclamations about hearts and souls make great poetry but don't really get down to the grit of it. We are the choices we make. Some of those choices will be whether to spend an hour in the morning on our clothes and makeup, or go to school wearing sweats and a bare face. Defiantly declare a major in pre-med, despite the guidance counselor's kind suggestion that business or teaching might be a "more realistic" option? Work for a safe bluechip company or a fiery start-up? Listen to the Classic Rock station or Top 40? Vacation in the Bahamas or add to your retirement fund? Dog or cat? City or suburb? Buick or Toyota? Whole Foods or Harris Teeter? The list goes on and on, endlessly. We make choices, and our choices make us. Love me for my choices, or not at all. The rest is Mendel's peas.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:00:53 GMT

Money Management Lesson #4,382:

NEVER default on a credit card from the bank you have a checking or savings account at.

The collections department at BigBadBank decided I was too far behind on my credit card payments and emptied my checking account Friday, right after my direct-deposit hit. Four weeks worth of living expenses, food, gas, bills, and a car payment that had been mailed but the check hadn't cleared yet-- all gone. And totally legal.

I discovered this Sunday when I sat down to joyfully, finally pay a big pile of bills-- and discovered that I was overdrawn by $200+ instead of the $1300 in the black that I should have been. I freaked out. I'm not usually the hysterical female type but I totally freaked out.

It feels a lot like being mugged; so much so that I missed a day of work Monday because I was simply too emotional to function. My stomach was in knots, I kept feeling like I was about to puke, and I kept crying if my mind even wandered anywhere in the direction of what had happened.

I'm doing better now, but I still don't know how I'll keep the electricity on, or put gas in the car or eat for the next four weeks. They took every fucking cent I had. I'm going to stop thinking about it now, or I'll freak again.

Expensive lesson-- *always* bank with a bank you have no other ties to, as counterintuitive as that may be.

(What does this have to do with FatChickNess? Not a thing- I just needed to vent. Thanks for being there, Xangans et al.)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 17:15:55 GMT

I spent $250 on clothes not long ago. It was my first clothing purchase in years, other than a $7 pair of pants from the thrift store last winter. Most places you can’t get more than a few pieces for $250, but these are Wal-Mart clothes. (Yes, Wal-Mart is evil, but that’s another entry.) I got a ton.

I do not enjoy clothes shopping. I have felt this way for as long as I can remember. It’s not fun. It’s a torturous necessity, akin to cleaning the cat box or folding laundry. Whether this is because I can never find things I like that fit right and look good, or because I’m just not a fashionable looks-oriented girly girl (which came first, the chicken or the egg??) we may never know. The point is, I like this season’s selection, and they fit well enough, and I badly needed them for my new office job, and I spent more cash on clothing in one trip than I had in well over five years combined. We paid in cash. We exit and head toward our car.

Three, two, one….

Me: “I should return some of this. I spent almost twice what we budgeted, I need to take some back.”

Hub: “You need it. It’s fine. “

Me: “What are we going to do about bill X and bill Y and groceries and that other thing? I can’t have all these clothes.”

Hub: “You like them. You need them. They look good on you. You need to impress them at the office so they’ll keep you on permanent. It’s ok.”

Me: “It’s too much.”

(Imagine this continuing until Hub is annoyed, not with the amount I spent, even though we have bills and really can’t afford it, but with my worrying about it).

We’re not talking about a mink coat here. We’re talking about two pairs of pants, a pair of shoes, pair of boots, three tee-shirts, a jacket, three sweaters, two blouses, and a long sweater/jacket thing. Barely enough to make it through a week of work, and that’s doing laundry since I really need more pants than that. And they’ll probably last me for years. So why the guilt??

For years I didn’t buy new clothes. When I had to buy anything I got it at the thrift store. My constant refrain was, “I’ll buy clothes when I lose weight. Why spend money now?” It might have made a little sense if I really planned on losing weight and I didn’t want to waste the money because soon the clothes wouldn’t fit, but that wasn’t the case. I wouldn’t buy myself nice things because I didn’t deserve them yet.

Who taught us we have to deserve to look good and feel good? Who taught us that being fat means that we are undeserving?? Would it just upset the balance too much if the fat chicks were confident and attractive too, or have we been trained to punish ourselves for our fat so nobody else has to bother to do it?

Compliment a fat woman’s appearance today. We all deserve to feel great.