Dangerous Liaisons

“Do you think anyone has ever crossed a greyhound with a poodle?”

“Ew. Poodles are icky. I’d like to think that greyhounds are too classy to take part in that kind of liaison. My Kiba wouldn’t do that.”

“What would it look like?”

“What would you call it?? A greydoodle?”

“Definitely not, Morgan. It would have to be a poohound.”

“No!”

“Oh, yes.”

A Bloody Mess.

It’s been a bit of a week. A full-on mommy-mode, get-any-closer-to-me-and-I’ll-kick-you-in-the-balls kind of week. Here is my knee; bloodied up twice in the span of 7 days. (You can see the laundry detergent in the background that aided me in scrubbing the blood out of my jeans.) More details to come…

Fat Friday - Cute. Fat.

The only hit on an image search for “Schmoofie”

Jen, and Ryan and I (pictured above) had a bit of the Three Musketeers thing going on in college. We went to a lot of speech competitions, and for a while we three were the only ones bringing back trophies on a team of nearly 10 folks. Every Wednesday night was set aside for the viewing of The West Wing. And I’ve seen you both go through the attendant celebrations and frustrations of a Juris Doctorate and an M.A. in Communications. But we were never called ‘The Three Musketeers’. We are The Schmoofies, a ridiculous pet name that started as a joke but wouldn’t go away.

I’m still sad that you left the Midwest (and me!) for bigger and better things in Washington D.C. But I can’t blame ya, and I’m going to set that aside for the moment because it’s Schmoofie #1’s birthday today. Happy Birthday, Ryan! I’m wishing you many more episodes of American Idol and games of fantasy football.

Love,
M.

Fat Friday - Sunbathing

We were spoiled by a couple of days of 65+ degree weather. Now it’s back to the good ol’ Minnesota stand-by: freezing. Sending you fat wishes for warmer weather…

An Open Letter to Ana.

Ana:

I want to sit you down for the moment, have a chat. Invite you out for a cup of coffee. There are some things I’ve needed to ask you for some time. But I couldn’t think of a polite way to approach the topic. It finally occurred to me that there is no polite way, and in fact, our daily realities are not fit for everyday conversation. But that is exactly why it’s okay to speak with you now, here. We’re damaged. It’s done. It’s out of the way. It’s acknowledged and put aside. We can have this conversation because I already know your ugly little secret. And you know mine.

So here we sit, two representatives from each extreme end of the disordered eating spectrum. I eat my emotions, and you starve them out. I look at you closely but I don’t see the emaciated skeletons of fashion runways and afterschool specials. You look, well, perfect. Toned and defined. I see power. I see control. I want to see these things. And I’m sick thinking of what you must see in looking at me, and sickened that I would feel such a way.

It’s a rut my brain is stuck in. I’ve tried so hard to be happy in my life as a fat girl. I won’t hesitate to bust the balls of someone trying to propagate fat hatred, but I can’t stop the hatred in me. It’s a deafening roar of loathing aimed at no one else but me. I have fat friends, I’ve dated fat men, and I value each them. But I forcibly exempt myself from that acceptance. I hate myself to the point that hearing an affirming remark from a friend about my looks is the worst kind of torture, like nails being raked along the inside of my skull. I’ll confess this to you, Ana: I hate being fat. I hate being a fat girl.

It’s the disease talking. I stopped going to Group because I didn’t want to face the idea that recovery meant I would still be fat. I’d sit and be critical of everyone who talked about their weight loss as part of their recovery, and I’d preach the ‘Health at Every Size’ philosophy. And it’s right. And it applies. But not to me. Not in my head. I don’t think I want a recovery that leaves me in this fat-padded misery.

I’ve done all the talking up to this point. You are a perfect listener. You’ve got an icy stare, and the set in your shoulders says: detached and calculating. I’m willing to bet that you’re a bitch, in the best and worst senses of the word. You’re an ideal, and maybe I can make you whatever I need.

Here’s what I’m proposing: we combine my brains with your ruthlessness. My innate sense of books and research with your determination. I think between the two of us, we might be able to shift my headspace away from compulsive eating. The underlying causes and reasons for eating disorders vary little, if at all. And if the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer visible, why not make the most of the darkness?

Are you in?

.Morgan.

Scrabble Around the World

“Lisa, that is not a word.”

“Yes, it is. ‘Que’ is a word.”

“Yeah, it is. In Spanish.”

“It’s also a shortened form of ‘queue’.”

“This is not the Bullshit Edition of Scrabble! I’m looking this up….” Lisa cannot stop laughing at me.

During Scrabble games I often keep my huge dictionary in plain sight, with one hand resting protectively (threateningly?) upon it. I want to remind my opponent that I won’t hesitate to call them out on a crap word. But I also want to be able to look up a word on the off-chance that some bizarre combination of letters that ended up in front of me might actually be a word. It happens more often than you think.

“Morgan.”

“????”

“Morgan, what is that supposed to be?”

“JIF”

“JIF is not a word.”

“Yes, it is. Most people think JIF is a popular brand of peanut butter, but what is less commonly known is that ‘jif’ is a shortened form of ‘jiff.’ As in, ‘I’ll have this work done in a jif.’”

“Bullshit.”

“Yes, it is.”

Fat…Saturday?

Yesterday was hell…..er, hectic. Tons going on at work with the departure of a colleague in my department, and Lisa came up from Iowa in the middle of all that. Didn’t manage to post for Fat Fridays, but this morning I’ve found a video of a fat girl excercising. I went to the doctor recently for my annual exam and all’s well. If popular opinion is correct, shouldn’t I have one foot in the grave? Gasping on my death bed? Whatever. If this chick can do the jumping jacks, then we’re all doing just fine.

Hit ‘em where it hurts.

For the past few years I’ve been on board with the Buy Nothing campaign that Ad Busters runs every year. I don’t do gift exchanges for the December holidays. As cheesy as it sounds, I still think that the best gift you can give over the holidays is the gift of your time. Whether you invested it in making a piece of art or a plate of cookies, or if you organize a holiday slumber party and film fest among your friends, it counts for something. As much as we would all love to add another Lean Mean Grilling Machine or princess cut diamonds to our collections (cough-cough), surely we can find a more meaningful way to gift. It’s a verb, you know: to gift. And it doesn’t necessitate the purchase of lame gift cards to Starbucks or wherever. (Though if you’d like donate a gift card to me for Half Price Books, phone lines are now open.)

And I won’t lie: I take a peculiar pleasure in knowing that I won’t be forking over a single buck to the mega-money-making machine that is the holiday season. I like to flip it the bird.

This recent discovery gives me one more way to throw a big ‘Fuck You’ at the fat-hating fashion industry. But I think instead of just handing them out to store clerks, I’m also going to pin them directly to clothes items so that everyday consumers see them, too.

Calling it “Home, Sweet, Home” might sound disingenuous.

I’ve been bullied in to going back to Coeur d’Alene for some holiday time. As I was booking my flight, booking my shuttle, booking my rental car, arranging for boarding for Kiba - basically spending $700+ in the span of an hour, all after I had recently just signed my soul over to the bank for a debt consolidation loan and cleared off all of my credit cards - I was struck by the thought that I would almost rather be doing anything else than going to Idaho. Suffering at the hands of skilled medieval inquisitors still sounded better than enduring the agony of a trip back there. Bring on the Rack, dammit. I’ll take thumbscrews any day over quality ‘family’ time.

My mother’s reasoning for my trip: “Well, Morgan, you know Fritzy [best German Shepherd in the world] is getting pretty old, and you should really see him before he goes.” This from the Queen of Passive Aggressive who would never say out loud that she wants to see me, and in fact, when I arrive she will undoubtedly become suddenly ’slammed’ at work and have to spend all her time on the job. While I prefer to have my punishment dealt out by cute, slightly malevolent inquisitors, my mother has only ever needed her own headspace to deliver a vicious beating to herself.

I resent having to spend so much money for the misery of her company. What pisses me off is that I know I sent a message months ago - when she first started hinting - that I would be unable to afford a plane ticket. But she just ignored it. Just blew right past it. And rather than fight her and have to hear about how I would be better off without her around (oh, yes, it was a trademark of my childhood to listen to her suicidal musings), I just caved and decided I might survive a few days in Idaho. Might.

The one bright spot in all of this is that I sent notes out to my two best friends in Coeur d’Alene - Billy and Brie - to let them know that I’ll be around and there will be times when they discover me standing on their front porches, my head violently spinning around, and death curses spilling from my lips. The cure will require a lot of alcohol. And probably a performance by Billy lip syncing to Celine Dion’s greatest hits. Billy’s response to my note arrived today via e-mail:

OMFG!!!!!! I can’t wait to see you!!!!!!!!!!

I’m counting on you, Billy, to keep me steadily drunk and detached. Don’t fail me now.