Fat Friday - Danger: Curves Ahead

Fabulous model and photographer, Velvet - yes, THAT Velvet - was interviewed in the most recent issue of BUST magazine. Last week we definitely established the difference between “industry fat” and “real world fat,” so this week I bring to you this stunning example of real world fabulous fat:

Discuss.

Oh. My. God.

Mormon missionaries strip down for the cause!

Father Figure

When I was three years old, my parents decided to go their separate ways. In fact, one of my earliest memories is of the night my father packed up and left. We didn’t see each other again after that night, and he passed away when I was 12. People often ask me if I miss him or regret not having him in my life growing up. To this I can only answer that I have nothing compare it to, and so I have nothing to regret. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that I had no men in my life. I had several role models, and they all played a pivotal role during my formative years.

Let me set the stage: when I was four-years-old, my mother was stationed on the remote island of Diego Garcia. With no family housing available on the base, my brother (then 3) and I were sent to Northern Idaho to live with my grandmother (Joan) and great-grandmother (Beth). Looking back on it, it was a strange couple of years. Joan is not very well-suited to motherhood, and even less so to grand-motherhood, so seeing it from the perspective of an adult, it seems as though she treated my brother and I more like roommates, and less like grandchildren. She shared her house and TV, somewhat grudgingly, and my brother and I did the best we could to navigate this bizarre state of affairs. The TV in particular is where I remember most clearly this game being played out. When you’re 56 years old and terminally self-absorbed, do you really want to share your TV with a four-year-old? Probably not. But the TV is where I met the first truly influential men of my life. Let me introduce you:

Peter Jennings. The evening news was a staple in Joan’s household. It was also non-negotiable. So every night as Joan set about preparing dinner, I would sit and listen to Peter tell me all the happenings of the wide, wide world. Peter Jennings and World News Tonight was a crucial moment for me each day when I could get out of the confines of a little neighborhood in Northern Idaho and learn about a place far bigger than myself. I was totally enamored with his professional delivery, and though I was yet too young to become disillusioned with mainstream media, I always felt like Peter would give it to me straight, and never talk down to me. I won’t lie - I cried when he passed away.

Alex Trebek. Game shows were more an interest of Great-grandma Beth. We always sat together every night to watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! I love word games - she and I played many a game of Scrabble - but Pat and Vanna always struck me as kind of plastic and gross. But Jeopardy! was something different; my chance to outshine the competition, and every night was part of my rigorous training to become the next contestant on the show. Alex was the magical gatekeeper of knowledge - at the wave of his hand, all these fascinating tidbits of information would appear - and I imagine it was here that my love affair with libraries began.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Like any good roommate, you’ve gotta know where to compromise. Joan got her nightly news, and once a week my brother and I got to go on an adventure with the USS Enterprise. I imagine that this seriously pleased my mother, too, because as a girl she used to indulge in her weekly dose of Captain James T. Kirk. The original Star Trek drove Joan crazy. Star Trek: The Next Generation certainly didn’t make any new converts. But I was definitely a true believer, and I was convinced that there was no one on this world or any other that could match the wit, courage, loyalty, and fierce determination of Captain Picard.

Left to right: Captain Picard, Peter Jennings, Alex Trebek. *mwah!*

Overheard at home

Scene opens to Mom sitting on the sofa scratching a very itchy pregnant belly (with shirt lifted up as it promotes ease of scratching) as Vampire, The Three Year Old Who Refuses To Sleep,  looks on with interest.

Vampire: What’s that?

Mom: That’s mommy’s tummy.  Your baby sister is in there.

Vampire leans in, places eye to Mom’s bellybutton: But I don’t see ANYTHING!

Mom laughs for ten minutes.

Fin

On primal brains (and PegaCorns!)

Because I like to email Morgan 9000 times a day, the topic of beauty pageants came up. More specifically, Mo’Nique’s FAT Chance and I was of two minds about the whole deal.

The feminist side of me says it’s not nice to put women up as pieces of meat at the butcher’s. The squealy girly side of me says fuck that, it’s nice to see fat girls prettied up and presented as more substantial and real pieces of meat. Real women don’t look like supermodels, and I think that hips and boobs are attractive on women, and men and women should reach out and hug the primal genetic caveman part of themselves that say “these hips may not look great in Armani, but they’re earthy and raw and made for enthusiastic wild monkey sex, so woo boy, let me get some of that!” This led to me to thinking about the way we process beauty and attraction on a subconscious level.

I really think that there is a primal part of ourselves that we listen to, sometimes without realizing it. (And yes, I realize that by putting our Id aside, we’ve evolved into the dominant species, but a lot of people refuse to admit the Id is even PRESENT anymore, and to that I say Phooey.) You know that new-baby smell that a lot women of reproducing age are fascinated by? That smell that makes their ovaries start chanting, “I want. I want. I WANT!”? That’s our bodies wanting to propegate the species. A lot of women chase their menfolk around the house while they’re ovulating and don’t even realize what they’re doing (I’m an example of that right now. Hello, Bun in my oven! Please stop kicking my bladder!). I mean, if we were completely ruled by our brains, our bodies wouldn’t do funny things like having a group of women who spend massive amounts of time together menstruate at the same time, because damn, who would want PMS all at the same time?

Fortunately, as we’ve evolved, we’ve also learned that the man doesn’t get to be the boss all of the time, and thus partnerships were born. In our home, my husband does what is more traditionally the manly things, and I do the feminine things, not because I’m subjugated and submissive, but because that’s what works for us. Sometimes we switch off. He was a stay at home dad for 18 months and Mama brought home the bacon. For many, many years he provided the bulk of child-rearing because he worked at night and I worked during the day. Now I’m a stay at home mom, and *I* get the unique pleasure of being driven slowly insane by the fruit of my loins.

I think that what we’re attracted to also plays a role with our primitive brains. For a lot of people, partners with brains are the new muscles. I know that sentence makes no sense, but hear me out. All of my friends are attracted to people that have something to offer mentally. Why? Because our jungles and savannas require us to use our intelligence, rather than spears, to get things done. We don’t have to worry about being hyper-vigiliant that we’re going to be eaten by a tiger, and can instead feed that want with conversation and exchange of ideas. We want someone we can talk to, not just someone to protect us from wild boars.

What we want as far as body-type plays into that, too. I prefer short, stocky men. I actually dig the caveman look (Hey! And I’m not the only one! Look here!). However, some women prefer tall and lean, to which I say, Hey, some people ran down the buffalo, some stood around and stabbed them. Some of us want the scouts, some want the stabbers. Variety of desires is what keeps us from all being a boring shade of beige, and that’s a good thing. What I think is a bad thing is the freaking tendency for the standard of attractiveness to be geared to an unattainable ideal. In the caveman days, I’d have been the queen or something, because I’m built just like the ancient fertility symbols. I don’t know why the standard of beauty has gone so far to the other side of what our primitive brain wants that bony is the new pretty. Natural body types come in a million and one shapes and sizes, and I don’t know why we feel this need to change the shape nature gave us. Women are supposed to have boobs and an ass. We have round, fleshy hips because it makes it easier to balance a baby on them. We are supposed to carry more body fat because pregnancy and breastfeeding require it, as does ovulation. When you lose X amount of body fat, you stop getting your period because your body is all “The fuck? Wait! I need some fat! Please!”

Then again, I may listen to the caveman part of myself way too much. My husband has a LOT of Mayan blood in him. A LOT. I mean, damn, it looks like he just walked off of a pyramid and swapped his loincloth for regular clothes. And I LIKE that about him. You Tarzan, me Jane, baby. If it came down to it, I know that Ricardo would jump in front of a lion for me and our kids, and my primitive brain seems to really dig that. Of course, then he’d be Lion Snax and we’d be Lion Main Course and Dessert, because it’s a damn lion, but you know what I mean. Unless he had a gun or something. Maybe he’d win then.

Fuck it, while I’m putting my husband in Imaginary Situations, let’s make him a billionaire. With a castle in Spain.

And a pony.

No, not a pony. A unicorn. With a gold horn. And wings. That poops rainbows.

There, okay, so a lion attacks my billionaire husband Ricardo outside of our picturesque villa in spain. He climbs on our Golden PegaCorn to do battle. And wins. And then we have sex and go buy things, like a small island, because we are billionaires and money is no object. And we have a nanny that uses her umbrella to fly and sings a lot. And I have perfect perky size D boobs that never need a bra. And I’m telekenetic and can clean the house with the power of thought. And my children never speak in a volume louder than Conversational Speech.

And you thought I’d never make it to the PegaCorn.

~Ellie PS: I realize that I didn’t get into LGBT and primitive brains. I think that primitive brains also play into the LGBT community, but it was way too much to touch on in one blog entry.

I’m totally going to hell.

When I saw this, I LOL’ed.  Handbasket for one, please.

 And since tomorrow is Caturday, here’s another one.

~Ellie

Fat Friday - Fashion on the Fly

Perennial fat girl cutie Crystal Renn is featured in the new Anna Scholz fall collection. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Via Too Fat for Fashion.

Bringing My B-Game

This week’s Therapy Concept to Drill In To My Brain: Perfectionism.

It’s an odd moment when you realize that the things you once thought of as quirks and habits, or even strengths, can actually turn out to be indicators of pathology. As I pursue this treatment farther, I’m gaining the kind of self-awareness that I thought I always had. (Wrong!) Take some examples:

Perception: I can anticipate the thoughts and needs of others, and make my decisions based on that in order to stay five steps ahead. Staying ahead of the game is to my advantage.
Pathology: Mindreading and assumptions. I walk around “knowing” what others are thinking about me (”Look at that fat girl! She’s disgusting!”) when half the time I probably didn’t even register on their radar.

Perception: I am a meticulous, organized, terminally capable and accommodating, badass motherfuckin’ professional.
Pathology: Obsessive perfectionist. I l.i.v.e for the compliments that feed my inner Paperwork Junkie. Are you one of those people who will obsess about the execution of a document or project, then a week later re-open the document to admire your handiwork? I am. I’d do constantly if I could.

What’s happening now is that I’ll find myself in the midst of these behaviors and a little red flag will be raised in my mind. I’ll be right in the middle of archiving files in banker boxes and see that I’ve included detailed inventory sheets not only inside the boxes, but taped to the tops and sides of the boxes, too, (duh! You want to be able to see the inventories no matter how they are placed on the shelves, RIGHT?) and I’ll stop dead in my tracks. My brain freezes and the words “Perfectionist Thinking” begin a steady beating through my head. Once I start moving again, it will be five minutes later when the flag raises again. “Perfectionist thinking! Perfectionist thinking! Danger, Will Robinson!”

I have become anxious about my anxiety. Sweeet.

But my Lame Duck therapist had an interesting suggestion: Bringing My B-Game. I have all the sports acumen of a dish cloth, so the analogy threw me at first. But as she explained, there are times when you need to play your A-Game. You need to push yourself and do the best that you possibly can. The problem for obsessive perfectionists is that they bring their A-Game for Every. Single. Thing. So for those folks it’s smart to play the B-Game. It doesn’t mean mediocre, it means doing the job well and competently without going above and beyond the call of duty each and every time. And she added, “And let’s look at it realistically, Morgan. Your B-game is probably most people’s A+ game.” (I don’t think I have to tell you how much the Paperwork Junkie in me enjoyed that little comment!) What I learned from this is that one inventory sheet in the box, and one taped to the top is probably sufficient.

This past week, as things pile up at both jobs, I’ve taken to wandering the halls chanting, “B-game. B-game. B-game.” And it’s kind of working! Last night I returned 14 phone calls and 6 e-mails from people interested in renting apartments, but by God, I left the most recent 5 e-mails UNANSWERED. FIVE! My response yesterday, as opposed to today, may mean the difference between housing and homelessness for them, but dammit, I am going to play the best fucking B-game I possible can!

Boshi

(This is from emails I sent to Morgan last night.  I can’t bear to type it twice.)

I’m only right now to the point where I’m not sobbing uncontrollably, but I’m still crying.  Boshi got hit by a car after I got done talking to you tonight and was killed.  We took him out to pee and he heard another dog and took off.  We had him on his leash but it was too loose and he slipped right out of it.  A car was coming around the corner and hit him.  He died instantly because he was so small.  We were going to take him to a vet, but he didn’t have a pulse and he was really torn up.   There wasn’t anything a vet could have done.  The lady that hit him was really upset, but it wasn’t her fault.  It was dark and she didn’t see him.  She wasn’t going that fast, but he was just so small, and her car was so big. 

R didn’t even love him like I did, and he cried.  I was inconsolable, so R buried him for me.  There’s a woody area near our apartments.  I don’t know what I’m going to tell the kids.  Alex loves that dog.  My poor puppy.  I know he didn’t suffer, but still…

God, Morgan, he was such a good dog.  Such a happy dog.  He never bit the kids, even when they were tormenting him and they deserved it.  He’d let Taylor put a box over him.  He was always so happy to see us, and was the best tiny watchdog there ever was.  He’d sit on my feet when I was on the computer and follow me from room to room.  He did tricks.  He and the cat would chase each other around in the middle of the night.  He was always smiling and happy.  I feel so guilty because I could have walked him more, or taken him for more car rides or given him more treats, and now I can’t do it. 

And now I’m bawling again.  I’m going to miss him so much.

I know there’s a Summerland for dogs, and I hope he has miles of green grass and flowers, trees to sniff, other dogs to play with, and all of the chew toys and treats he could ever want.  He was such a good dog, and he deserves that.

My heart broke into a million squillion pieces when Taylor was asking where Boshi was this morning.  I explained that Boshi had to leave to be with the other dogs and wasn’t coming back, but that he was happy and that he was a good dog and we’ll miss him.

We’ll miss you, Boshi.  You were the very best of dogs.

~Ellie 

How to sleep in the same king-sized bed as a three year old.

1. Threaten child with pains of death unless he lays down and goes to sleep right. this. minute. Child bursts into giggles.
2. Make mental note to be more intimidating in future.
3. Listen to child whine about how he doesn’t have enough space, even though there is four feet between you and your significant other.
4. Tell child to get over it and go to sleep. Glare at child meaningfully.
5. Child begins to fly imaginary spaceships with accompanying sound effects. Look at clock and wonder why you didn’t get a puppy. Even a naughty puppy that chewed up the sofa wouldn’t be all that bad, would it?
6. Child begins to jump on the bed. Forcibly lay child down while uttering more threats. Child now becomes whiny.
7. Child finally falls asleep after much wrangling. Child assumes starfish position in the middle of the bed.
8. Go to sleep.
9. Wake up to discover that you are clinging to three inches of mattress on the edge of the bed because child has lodged himself under your back and is jabbing you in the kidneys with his knees. (Bonus points if you are pregnant and this makes you get up to go to the bathroom.)
10. Try to shove child over and discover that the earth has increased the gravitational pull around him and he now weighs 3 tons while asleep. Ponder laws of gravity briefly. Eventually get child back to center of bed and go back to sleep.
11. Wake up after getting slapped in the face by a flying hand as child flails around in his sleep. Think wistfully of puppy again. Go back to sleep.
12. Back to the edge of the mattress. Shove kid over again. Glare at significant other that has blissfully slept the sleep of the angels through all of this and briefly consider smothering S.O. with a pillow. Relish mental picture.
13. Finally fall into a delicious, wonderful sleep. Dream of beds that three year old would deign to sleep alone in.
14. One hour later, alarm rings to wake S.O. up for work. Sob into pillow.

Selling Our FatAsses On The Corner:

If you are looking for a new bed, a king size for yourself or a toddler bed for a child, you can find any kind of bed online. You can even order mattresses and adjustable beds. Even if you don’t want to purchase over the internet, you can read reviews and compare prices.