Fat Friday - She stirred up some trouble, did this one.

Velvet D’Amour, a size 28 model and actress, created a fuss at a recent Gaultier fashion show among the already boiling controversy of banning too-thin models from the runways.

I think she looks hot. Well, except for that hairdo. I think Perez Hilton would refer to that mess as “whoreanus”.

Is there anything they WON’T blame on fat folks?!?!

Now fat folks are supposedly responsible for the rise in gas consumption and oil prices. Right. I liked daltdanyon’s message board post about this piece of shite research:

Another non news item. Interestingly enough though, I read this at another AP site and this article leaves out the following paragraph:

The lost mileage is pretty small for any single driver. Jacobson said the typical driver -someone who records less than 12,000 miles annually-would use roughly 18 fewer gallons of gas over the course of a year by losing 100 pounds. At $2.20 per gallon, that would be a savings of almost $40.

Gee, the average man weighs 191 according to this ****’s “research” The average woman? 164. Do the math. So apparently we need to emaciate our entire population to achieve a net savings of 0.7 percent of our yearly usage? Get a grip. Tighten the gas cap and inflate your tires properly and we’ll save twice that. Oh yeah, if you add more weight you expend more energy in moving it. It’s called PHYSICS.

I think what bothers me most is that this pap passes for “research” and was probably McLay’s doctoral thesis. Following a close second is the self-loathing-America-is-the-source-of-all-evil crowd agreeing with this flawed science. It’s no wonder the rest of the world gives us grief when we publish this junk. To paraphrase a famous saying ” Tis best not to publish and be thought a fool than to turn it into news and remove all doubt.

I can think of another reason for climbing oil prices. Do I even really need to mention the ongoing debacle in the Middle East? Surely, we can all connect the dots on this one. And let’s not forget about the love this country has for the mighty SUV. With the 150-pound person in the Hummer, you’d rather blame the gas consumption on the 300-pound person in the Honda Civic? Give me a break.

Leave the fatties alone, you quack researchers! Do something worthwhile with your time, for fuck’s sake. I hear they’re still looking for a cure for cancer.

I won’t apologize. You know I’ve a weakness for vampires.

Still saddened, but no longer shocked by this kind of shit.

We still rip ourselves to shreds - me included - as we are bombarded all the time by images of ‘beauty’. But when facing down the latest super model on the cover of the magazine, it’s hard to remind yourself that the digital designers are really doing more work than the model herself. They just do their job so damn well. It’s a kick in the gut every single time.

Thanks to Isaac the Theologian for the link.

Fat Friday: Letting Google do the work for me

Abby is coming up from Des Moines this weekend, and it serves as the catalyst - at long, fucking last - for me to clean my apartment. I’ve been going since 7:30pm (with a brief 3o minute break at 10:30pm for Kiba’s walk), and I’m off the clock now at 2:00am. But the place is sparkling. I even mopped. With proper wood floor soap. Do you know how many times that has happened in the five months I’ve lived here? Zero.

So to commemorate this Fat Friday, I am celebrating that trait which got me in to this damn mess: my love of putting the work somewhere else until the last possible gasp. As of right now, this is the first hit for an image search for ‘Fat Friday’.

Huh?

Wait a minute. You can be a mom AND have a career!?!

I’ve always been a bit jealous of the European countries that offer employees 3 weeks of paid vacation. Standard. From the first year of hire. While the U.S. seems intent on working us all to death - getting the most out of us for least investment possible, or worse, sending that work to an underdeveloped country and being even beastlier about pay and conditions - Europe seems to have figured out that happy employees are productive employees.

More evidence of that appeared today in the Washington Post in an article about France’s answer to declining birth rates. Families - and moms in particular - are given extraordinary amounts of help in the care of their children. Yes, the lean of the article really seems to press on the old-fashioned notion of “woman as caretaker” - there’s no mention of dads anywhere getting maternity leave - but I was still blown away by what the French government is doing to care for its children.

My boss passed along this advice to me: If faced with a big problem that you can’t figure out, you can always throw money at it. The French are throwing money, and look what it’s getting them:

1. After the birth of a child, women can opt to leave work and stay with the child up until its third birthday, collecting monthly maternity leave benefits and allowances. And their job is guaranteed to be waiting for them.

2. Families receives huge tax breaks, subsidies, discounts on transportation for the care of children - most programs operating on a sliding scale for low-income families.

3. FREE child care and pre-school centers for kids that are 3 years old until they enter kindergarten.

4. 75% of French mothers with two or more kids are employed. C’est vrai!

5. There are also government recreation centers in nearly every town and summer programs - all on a sliding scale for income - that take kids on day trips to cultural institutions, swimming pools, farms, etc.

Compared to so many U.S. companies that seem to punish women for having children, France has got a pretty good deal going on. It gives me a little grrlie thrill to see a country that isn’t delivering ultimatums to families, but rather, making it happen so that families can work and raise their kids as best they can.

Partial Rent

“Hey, dude. I got part of your rent check today.”

“Yeah, Morgan, I can pay the rest of it to you in a week.”

“No, I mean you put the check under my door and my dog got bored and ate half of it.”

“Oh!”

“Hmm. I wonder if in the future you could put your checks in the office drop box, rather than under the door where my four-legged paper shredder lives?”

Fat Friday - It’s a triple martini Friday, y’all.

Not Otherwise Specified

I spend a lot of time on this site talking about fat. Pro-fat, fat positive. Fat, fat, fat. It’s all personally relevant, but lately I’ve been dwelling on the other side of the FatGrrl coin: my eating disorder. I’m not inclined to bring it up. It’s not really suitable dinner-table conversation. It’s embarrassing, and knowing that people I see everyday read this site makes me even less inclined to make them uncomfortable. Even beyond that, I don’t want a lot of pitying looks or helpless expressions.

But I’ve thought about it a lot lately, and what is the point of hosting a site like this if not to be totally honest about the issues being addressed? And I haven’t been honest with you. I’ve been a dirty rotten lying whore. Here’s some truth for you:

1. I am absolutely pro-fat: I believe that fat-hatred is one of the last socially acceptable bigotries, and it permeates all aspects of our culture. “Health At Every Size” is not a myth, it’s a commendable, up-hill battle to debunk psuedo-science about fat and reshape common conceptions of beauty.

2. I hate being fat. Hate it. While I will fight tooth and nail to defend a fellow fat girl against job discrimination, a money-hungry diet industry, and other fat haters, I do not wake up each morning, look in the mirror, and celebrate my size. The frustrations with my body that I’ve published on this site easily make up less than 10% of the hatred and anger I save just for myself. I have OK-days. I have a lot more not-OK days.

How’s that for fucked up?

But I believe I’m a researcher at heart. When something’s got a hold of me, I want to know what it is. Something Fishy is a recent addition to the Fat Links side bar and I encourage you to spend a little time there. It’s a pro-recovery site for those affected by eating disorders. I had to laugh when I read this:

It has been written for years that one of the classic signs and symptoms that someone is suffering with Anorexia or Bulimia [and other eating disorders] is that they read a lot on the topic. They are often well educated on their disorder, and a great number of them know all the physical risks. Because these are a psychological illnesses though, the risks alone are never enough to “just stop”.

Even my love of libraries lends itself to my disordered head. But there is another side to this particular coin, too. The pro-recovery coin, that is. There is a sub-culture out there devoted to those that live with eating disorders but do not choose recovery. This is hardly news. It got a lot of play in 2002 when the site Anorexic Nation was in it’s heyday. There were those touting pro-ana, i.e. pro-anareoxia, as a lifestyle rather than a disease. You’d find a lot of tip & tricks for being ana and hiding it from others, and loads of “thinspiration” with pics of bony-arsed celebrities and models. Today there are still plenty of pro-ED (Eating Disorder) sites and communities, and I wanted to research those, too. Afterall, any good librarian worth her salt can tell a researcher where to find the dangerous stuff, too.

Not Otherwise Specified is one particularly worth looking at. (She takes the name from the DSM-IV category for a diagnosis that does not meet all the clinical criteria for anorexia or bulimia - an ‘eating disorder not otherwise specified’ or ED-NOS.) The site’s creator declares the site to be pro-reality rather than pro-ED, explaining that she wishes recovery for every person, but she also offers a space where those still in the disease can gather for support. She’s pro-reality because she doesn’t pull the punches when it comes to sharing the ugly details of an eating disorder. She’s a researcher like me. She’s diseased like me. So she knows exactly what a vitamin A deficiency will do to your body; every last disgusting detail. She provides a resource to those still struggling with EDs - and let’s not kid ourselves; it’s not a lifestyle, it’s hell on earth - and as weird as this sounds, the information can be used to be the healthiest disordered individual possible.

On some levels it makes sense. For a suffering anorexic, they aren’t going to go somewhere only to hear people say, “Eat a fucking sandwich.” As a compulsive eater, I similarly want to avoid the people who can only offer, “Just stop eating already, and you wouldn’t be such a pig.” Many pro-ED sites offer a community where the disordered can go to create connections with people, and I think that is very important given that ED’s are generally such intense isolators. Of course, there’s also a lot of bullshit out there by trendy little motherfuckers that claim they want to be ana so they can fit in to their damn prom dresses. No one chooses an eating disorder. It takes years to put you in that headspace. Keep your bullshit detectors on, people.

Unfortunately, all that research does for me is give me time to focus intently on my disease. Otherwise the obsessive thoughts simmer down to a dull roar at the back of my skull. Right now it doesn’t make me feel anymore inclined to seek recovery, and there are days when I wonder if anyone can recover. Is it something like cancer, that can go in to remission and then come back without warning to finish you off?

I am a disordered girl with an eating disorder not otherwise specified. That’s all I really know right now.

If wishes were horses, fat girls would still be fat girls.

Some times when I absolutely loathe being a fat girl:

1. During PMS when I feel about ten times larger than usual and I walk around being hyper-aware of my body at all times. (This is a particularly bad time to be around me if you happen to be a size 8 complaining about not being a size 6. I will be inclined to beat you senseless.)

2. Facing the dilemma of having to travel on an airplane during a potentially busy time of year, then feeling relieved that I won’t have to ask for a seat belt extender because hey, I’m fat but I’m not that fat. Enduring subsequent guilt for having felt relieved that I am not numbered among the seatbelt extender crowd.

3. When drunk homeless men want to shake my hand and introduce themselves while staring at my breasts. This usually brings on the kind of day where I’m sure that only two kinds of men will ever be interested in me: homeless drunks and emotional cripples. Oh wait, I remember reading in many a blog comment that men would be more interested in fat girls if they were more confident. Yes, that’s it. Tell me, boys, what you find about the above scenario that inspires confidence? You can go ahead and put the blame on me - it’s my fault because I’m not more confident - but I’m going to put the ball in your court. What do you do to inspire confidence in women?

Well, savvy readers, you’ve probably already figured out that situation #1 is happening right now. Dammit.