Cell phone? Check! Paperbag for hyperventilation? Check!!

The next couple of days are going to bring with them an alarming and overwhelming amount of work. I’m moving tomorrow, and coordinating the move-ins of seven other people into the building. My first thought today, which I wrote to a friend earlier, was: “Well, if I was my boss, I’d start the day off with half a tranquilizer. ” Or maybe I should give the tranquilizer to Kiba.

Too bad I have no idea how to illegally procure prescription drugs.

If there is no FatGrrl update by this Friday, please send someone to search for my body.

Tomorrow is a new day…

…and the World’s Stupidest Resident is moving out! At long fucking last I’m getting rid of her. This is the party that Steve the Former Caretaker and I have been waiting for.

Caroline Flint: Arsehole of the UK

Remember Caroline Flint? The UK health minister that directed general practioners to confront their obese patients and demand that they slim down? You know, that bossy old cow that thinks fat folks are freaks and anomalies that need to be badgered and bullied into losing weight? Yes - that Caroline Flint.

She’s at it again! This time, she wants to put all school kids ages 4 and 10 on a scale to track…wait for it…childhood obesity! What the fuck? Weigh 4-year olds and report to their parents if the child is obese? If anyone ever wondered why it is that 10-year old girls will report to surveys that they are too fat and on a diet, this is how it begins, people.

Good find, BFB.

The point at which my head implodes.

Between the stress of my day job, the stress of the apartment job, and the impending trip to Wyoming for a wedding and all its attendant problems, just one phrase keeps swirling about in my head: key lime martini I.V. (And I don’t even like needles.)

But with any luck, Steve the Former Caretaker will be coming over this evening to help me repair the door frame Kiba chewed on, so I’ll have a little time to dreamily consider all the things I would do to Steve if I could just get his girlfriend out of the way.

Fat Girls in novels

I’m looking for fat girl fiction. I mean, fat girl fiction in which the fat girl stays a fat girl. Not the kind of ugly-duckling-into-beautiful-swan fiction where the girl gets the great job and hot date - but only when she dumps 50 lbs. I want the fat girl fiction where she stays fat and STILL gets the great job, hot date, unbelievably fantastic trip to Europe with aforementioned hot date, etc. Where is she?

Am I just going to have to write the damn thing myself?

Work or stay home? Work or stay home?

The sixth season of The West Wing is out on DVD, and I can barely drag myself away from the TV to go to work, to show apartments, to change out of my pijamas, or acknowledge the world for the most part.

(Though Christina the Self-Righteous Drunk did come over last night for Chinese take-out and Super Mario World - that was an awesome diversion - as a reminder for me to reconnect with other people occasionally.)

Bartlett for president!

Occasionally there really is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel strangely peaceful this morning. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I’m definitely hoping it sticks around. Yesterday I was abstinent from the compulsive eating side of my disorder. It was unexpected and incredible. Right now I’m abstinent. And I’m okay. My brain isn’t going 100mph with obsessive thoughts about food. This morning I had to run errands on the way to work and I was planning to stop at a grocery store to pick up a bottle of mocha cappuccino coffee stuff that I l.o.v.e. But I didn’t do it. And I’m still okay. The world is still turning.

When I’m at Friday Night Group, and I hear people talk about abstinence and the incredible peace of mind that it gives them, my response has always been very mistrustful and doubtful. I tried for a while to be abstinent - no compulsive eating, no bingeing - and I was miserable . So my reasoning had turned into: “If I’m miserable when I’m in the disease, and miserable when I’m trying to climb out of the hole, why can’t I just take the bag of cookies along for the ride?” Today is different. I’m going to hold on to this at least for the rest of the day.

Cross-Stitch Itch

I am SO excited for Tuesday Knitting Night because a crafty friend of mine will be unveiling a newly produced cross-stitch pattern developed from a Yoshitomo Nara painting. Nara’s paintings are so fantastic, and I’m very much a fan, as I confessed here. It will be a very welcome distraction from the stress that’s building over my upcoming move.

Of course, the idiot resident that tried to burn down the building won’t leave till the 31st, and my apartment is already rented for the 1st, and THAT girl has to be out of her place by the 1st. It’s going to be a circus. On top of all that, the 1st falls right in the middle of the week! Stress! But I spoke with the Evil Twin Property Manager yesterday, and he said that the maintenance crew would be there to help me move. Awesome. So instead of them fixing leaks and replacing lightbulbs, they will be conscripted to move my furniture. I bet that will make us inseparable BFF’s.

But I won’t think about that right now. I’ll think about Yoshitomo Nara and the sweet cross-stitch mural I want to make of his cute little creatures:

Eau du Horse

I was taking Kiba through the park yesterday, when she stopped us at a particularly snifferlicious spot of grass. I checked to see if there was food there that she shouldn’t be eating, and then let her go about her business of carefully sniffing each blade of grass while I stared off into space. My attention snapped back when I heard this audible ‘thump’ and I looked to see Kiba with her right shoulder on the ground and her ass in the air as she was scooting and squirming on this patch of grass. She jumped up and smiled at me, then promptly threw herself back down on her left shoulder to do it again. She did this several more times, before finally flopping onto her back and rolling around.

I couldn’t stop laughing at her. She was having such a good time; I doubt I could have gotten a more orgasmic response out of her with raw steak.

Later at home while we were camped out on the couch moving our way through season 2 of Law and Order: SVU, I leaned over Kiba to give her a hug, when I smelled something decidedly non-greyhound. Still basking in the afterglow, she looked up at me with glazed-over eyes. And that’s when I remembered that the seasonal horse-drawn carriages will often go through Loring Park.

“Dog, that’s disgusting. You smell like horse shit.”

I swear she was smiling about it.

Fat as Fetish

I just wanna say, “Yay for fetishists!” Fetishes make things interesting and remind us that sexuality is a spectrum of activities and practices, not a handful of OK’s and Not-OK’s plucked from a religious text. Every week I wait for the appearance of the new Savage Love column because I love to read Dan Savage in action. Nothing is taboo when it comes to Dan Savage’s writing, and I’m always interested to see what kind of sex questions people can bring to the table. If ever you want to see evidence of ’sexuality as a spectrum of activities’, Savage Love is the place to find that.

What all this comes down to is that I’ve been thinking about fat, and fat girls, and fat as a fetish a lot recently. I posed a question to all those FatGrrl readers that end up here through image searches for ‘fat girls’ and there was some response (though not what I’d been hoping for). Men seemed to be ashamed to admit that they are attracted to bigger women. This is due to the social stigma surrounding fat: “You like fat chicks? What’s wrong with you?”

Sexual fetishism, as defined on Wikipedia, is a ‘form of paraphilia (non-mainstream sexual practice) where the object of affection is a specific inanimate object or part of a person’s body.’ It goes on to say, ‘In popular culture, the term ‘fetish’ has gained a broader meaning, and can cover any sexuality which is perceived as unusual.’

Even though an attraction to fat women (and to be honest, I’m getting really fucking tired of making this distinction; I can’t just be a woman and be fat, as ‘thin culture’ still considers me less than a real woman) does not meet the definition of a sexual fetish, it has still become identified as one in popular culture because it is considered unusual. And in this instance ‘unusual’ is probably anything not straight-white-Christian-male approved. Sure, there’s a Wikipedia article about Fat Fetishism, too.

So, it’s weird to be attracted to me. It’s weird to think I’m beautiful. It’s strange to think of me as a potential partner. Just by virtue of being fat, I am a fetishized object. Not normal. But I’m a girl, not a fetishized object. I’m not shoes, leather, latex, urine, or any other kind of fetishized object. I’m a girl. I’m a fat girl. It’s like I have been conscripted to play this sexualized role, and there was never an opportunity for me to offer my consent. If a man is going to look at me with desire, it must be because he’s a freak. And yet, there are men out there who would find me attractive, few and far between though they may be.

I have to think about this more. Anyone have some thoughts to include?