FatGrrl Reviews: Surrogates

Having never read the graphic novel, I headed in to the theater and got mostly what I expected: action, intrigue, and techno-geekery all centered around some very interesting questions. The story takes place in a future where people, for the most part, conduct their lives in the world through the use of robotic surrogates. Walk the dog, buy the groceries, seduce that cutie at the coffee bar, all from the comfort of a reclining chair and a host of technical screens and mysterious bleeps and blips.

The movie? Honestly, I could take it or leave it. It was a fun way to kill a couple of hours. It’s not as though the underlying message wasn’t clear, but I don’t know if it really succeeded in pushing people to consider the consequences, or just to point and say, “Yeah, he totally screwed up. If I had a surrogate, that totally wouldn’t happen.” There is a central figure to the story, called The Prophet, who speaks out against the surrogate movement as a lie and an abomination to the human race. But I don’t think this film is about humans vs. robots at all. At the center of this story is the question of identity.

I liked the way Surrogates author Robert Venditti put it while speaking of his inspiration for the novel, and how he had seen lives destroyed by those addicted to the internet and their online personalities:

It dawned on me that if you were somehow able to create a persona and send it out into the real world—where it could go to work for you, and run your errands, and so on—then you would never have to go back to being yourself.

If I had the option to adopt another body as my own and send it out in the world, how would I look? How would I act? Would it really be all that different from me now? Oh, gee, look. There’s my eating disorder jumping up and down at the back of the class with an answer to our question. Yes, eating disorder? What’s that you say? If you had a surrogate you would instantly shave off 100 lbs? A new wardrobe full of to-die-for cute pencil skirts and sassy librarian plaids? Would ya? Huh huh?

I am totally seduced by the idea of surrogates as presented in the movie. I am enthralled with the idea of getting to design the body that is seen by the world, because where I’m at right now?, it sure as hell wouldn’t be this one. Even writing that I feel vaguely guilty for being so ready to pass up the body that I was given.  But I also would like to believe that, even with a surrogate, the value of my identity would shine through: my intelligence, my wit, my compassion, my bad-assery. But would it all backfire in the end? Could we effectively remember that the beautiful bombshell in front of us might actually turn out to be a 45-year-old git in a wifebeater stained with spaghettios? Or would it all just prove that in the end we let looks drive our assumptions and it affects our decisions about people?

What do you think? Would you use a surrogate? Would you change your looks? Your personality? Would you lead the life you have now, or try to totally reinvent yourself?

Fattening Up Social Protest Rhetoric

A very good friend (and former college speech teammate) and I recently got back in touch, and it turns out she’s doing some super amazing things. I mean, the woman already has a PhD in Communication which is pretty damn amazing to begin with, and now she’s teaching Comm. out on the east coast and one of her classes immediately piqued my interest: Social Protest Rhetoric.

For those of you who live outside the geek bubble of communication and rhetoric, let me take this moment to welcome you with open arms. It is a delightful place, and something I find endlessly fascinating. How do we communicate as a people/group? What words do we choose, and how do we structure them? How do those choices affect the final message sent? What are the results?

So what is social protest rhetoric? From where I am, I would describe it as the communication structures and strategies surrounding an issue of social importance that seek to change a perceived imbalance in the status quo. (I’m totally pulling that out of my arse, so if you comm. majors have suggestions to make for this definition, fire away!)

Looking at that definition, if Fat Acceptance isn’t a prime case study for Social Protest Rhetoric, I don’t know what is! Let’s check out some basic tenants of social protest rhetoric that I tracked down and see how HAES stacks up: Bowers, J. W., Ochs, D. J. and R. J. Jensen, (1993), The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control, Prospect Heights,IL:Waveland.

1. Petition: Normal discursive means of persuasion.
Hundreds of size positive blogs. Thousands of comments and conversations - on and off the messageboards - discussing these issues. Friendly talks with friends, neighbors, and even the occasional stranger. Sounds like “normal discursive means of persuasion” to me!

2. Promulgation:  Win and attract support of new members through such means as posters, meetings, notices to the media, etc.
Invitations to participate in fat positive conversations. Conferences and round table discussions open to the public. TV appearances encouraging folks to reconsider their assumptions and look at the issue from another angle. Hot dance parties where newbies can shake their booties!

3. Solidification: Unite followers inside the group through essays, plays, songs, art work, symbols, slogans, etc.
We have a vocabulary of our own: Fat Positive, Size Positive, Health At Every Size, Fatosphere. We have writers and poets and dancers and artists who create works to communicate the ups and downs of this struggle; the things to celebrate and the things to overcome.

4. Polarization: Moves individuals into agitation; division of us versus “them.”
We use our eagle eyes to keep a look for fat discrimination and we immediately raise it to the attention of the community: companies and individuals that actively seek to keep fat folks as separate; as “other.” I’m looking at you, MeMe Roth.

5. Nonviolent resistance: Sit-ins, boycotts, picket lines, etc.
This is where we kick some serious ass, not only in terms of blogging, commenting, and letter writing to raise our voices and protest discrimination, we LIVE everyday of our lives in bodies that subvert the social “norm.” Doing nothing more than enjoying our daily lives, we thumb our noses at “them.”

See what I mean? We are are really so very awesome.

I cannot live on cat food alone!

So the verdict on the car came in - radiator goo - and the solution came right behind it: new radiator needed.

Price for New Radiator: $500

New Balance of My Savings Account: $25

Dreams of Seattle Despite Impending Poverty: Priceless

I had a bit of a meltdown on Tuesday. I felt so overwhelmed and pushed to my limit. It’s so disheartening to work so hard; to try, and try, and try, and still not get a break. I’m tired of waiting my turn. I’m just gonna cut in line at this point:

UNIVERSE! I need a break. Right NOW, please!

Booze was created for days like this.

I’m a big liar, of course, because my little eating disorder-bedeviled soul has always believed that days like these - days in which you are quite sure someone SOMEWHERE is pulling on your strings and having a fucking good laugh at your expense - were made with dessert in mind. Lots of dessert.

So, can we call it a step in recovery that I thought of a stiff drink before a slice of key lime pie? No, I didn’t think so either.

The day started and I felt completely off balance for no apparent reason whatsoever. That doesn’t often happen. Generally I know e.x.a.c.t.l.y what is bothering. Doesn’t mean I’m going to be a big brave girl and deal with it, but I do know what the IT is to begin with. Not so today, adventurous readers! Today I was driving the Canadian to work, tears running down my face, and my poor husband asking, “Are you SURE you don’t know what’s bothering you?” I was kind of a mess.

But here’s where the Canadian gets big props: he swooped in like a devoted mother hen and took control of things while I was floundering. He told me I was taking the day off from the world, and he stopped the car, put me in the passenger’s seat, and turned us around for home. The plan was to tuck me in to bed with some movies and a bottle of Diet Coke. I started to feel a bit better, just feeling cared for. I can tell you that one of my favorite parts of being married - besides having someone to clean out the catbox because I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than do it - are those days where I’ve just had enough and there is someone there to say, “You need a break. Whatever you’re carrying around right now, let me worry about it for a while and you just rest.”

I was nestled in the passenger’s seat, kind of glowing; we’re two blocks from the video store, and then….steam begins to pour from under the hood of the car, and I cannot open my eyes wide enough so great is the shock. “Pull over! Pull over! Pull over! Now! Now! NOW!”

We caught a ride with the tow truck and hauled my poor baby in to the garage. Kudos to the Canadian for dealing with a woman who is not only temporarily emotionally unhinged, but also completely pissed off because the car had been in for an 80,000 mile tune up just THREE WEEKS BEFORE!

After hearing more than I care to admit about the considerable marital problems of my mechanic, we headed over to the tattoo shop to kill some time while they checked on my car, affectionately know as Beast Jr. And the day just kept getting better:

1. One of the tattooers put too much water in the autoclave and it sounded like a steam engine horn going off periodically. At first I thought it was a damn pressure cooker. Are they cleaning tubes or canning jam in there?

2. One of my terminal charity cases called from an apt. building and wanted to make a deal about rent. The BEGGING! The PLEADING! The SOBBING & SNOTTING! And all I really want to say is, “Would you mind terribly just fucking off for awhile? Thanks ever so much.”

3. Got a hold of my mechanic. Turned out my radiator is full of goo! And in the pause after delivering the news, the only response I could think of is, “Dude, I did NOT put that in there!”

Reading: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
Watching: Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel
Playing: Trivial Pursuit for PS3

DBT….easy as 1, 2, 3!

Eating disordered thoughts can quickly become a chaotic and emotional whirlwind in the brain.  They fly hard and fast and it’s so easy to become overwhelmed and completely swept away. I’ve also written about this in the past as a Hamster Attack - that hamster wheel spinning, and spinning, and driving you further into frantic and obsessed thinking around food and eating. Now imagine throwing your arms in the air and yelling at the tornado to STOP!

How did that go for you? Yeah, I don’t have much luck controlling the storm either. But it hasn’t stopped me from looking for mental stop signs that I can throw out and try to curb the damage. Right now I’m in a place where I’ve really begun to notice when my thoughts start racing. Before it was just a near constant state of being and I had no idea what a quiet mind really felt like. These days, as I’m trying to rest, I can see it for what it is now: my thoughts feel like a crowd of 6 year olds in bumper cars, sugared to the hilt with pizza and ice cream, and let loose in my head. My first response is exasperation, frustration, impatience….and then I yell out loud, “Stop it! Stop right now! Slow down! Keep your hands inside before you poke someone’s fucking eye out!”

Of course, noticing the racing thoughts doesn’t really do much towards slowing them down or ending them, it’s just an important first step before you can do any slowing or stopping. I feel ready to tackle some strategies for slowing down my mind and overwhelming  emotions, and to do that I am looking towards Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT uses a number of strategies and exercises to address four key components: distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. What it does is essentially ease you away from destructive coping mechanisms, bingeing in my case, and give you a new set of power tools to use.

I’ve picked up a DBT workbook that I’ll be working through on a weekly basis with PhD Smiley and you’re invited along to see what happens. Anyone else out there have experience with DBT? How did it go for you?

Tattooing and Therapy

The maneki neko shoulder piece that’s been in progress for over a year is finally finished- 3 sessions and 7 hours later.  Many thanks to Kyle Franklin at the Aloha Monkey for the great work! I love this piece.

As I was sitting in my discussion group a couple of weeks ago, I was asked an interesting question as people looked over the finished piece. I was asked what it was about tattooing that enjoyed, and it was something like cutting for me.

I like the personal sovereignty that comes with tattooing. I am in complete control of what is applied to my skin and how it looks - something I feel like I have very little of when it comes to my size. My body size feels out of my control most of the time.

I can remember one clear instance of running to find the Canadian at the shop because I was feeling so horrible that I was totally lost - had no idea what to do. (And when a girl with compulsive disordered eating doesn’t even think EATING is a good idea, that’s a pretty distracted state of being.) I asked him to please have someone tattoo me. Please, please, please. I wanted to feel anything else but what I was feeling at that moment.

And it did work. By the end I was calm, breathing normally again, and I didn’t feel like I was about to take a tumble off a very high cliff. It is what I needed in that moment and I took it. But the majority of my tattoos are not like that at all. I spend time thinking about them, planning, and talking with the artist because I want each piece to be personally pertinent. My story, if you will.

But this question in group threw me a bit because even if I didn’t use the pain of tattooing as a coping mechanism, the question was there for me as to what I might, if anything, be using the tattoos for. And I did have an answer:

Walking down the street, if people are looking at me they are going to see the ink first. And when I’ve been out and feeling particularly vulnerable, I’ve told myself over and over again, “They’re looking at the ink, not the fat. They’re looking at the ink, not the fat.” In a sense, my tattoos are acting as a diversion, the bells and whistles that say, “Look over here! Look over here!” before people have a chance to look anywhere else like my belly or arms. They feel like a suit of armor, in a sense, and right now I’m glad for the protection.

Tidbits

Today I took one step closer to realizing our relocation to Seattle: I registered to take the GRE. My first step towards applying for the Masters of Library and Information Sciences program at the University of Washington.

I took the GRE once before in 2002, but the deadline has long since passed so I will be enjoying that 4-hour thrill of multiple choice at the end of October. I’m not too worried about it. In fact, 2002 was the first year they replaced the logic section with the essay section and I was in h.e.a.v.e.n. I love me some essays, and you can believe I totally killed that part of the exam. I’m expecting a repeat performance again this year. So I’ll be spending some quality time over the next month memorizing Latin and Greek root words and brushing up on my Calculus.

You know how some decisions, once made, just snap into place? Like the satisfying snap of lego bricks. I love that, and it’s been a long time coming.

Reading: For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison
Watching: Lost: Season 1
Playing: Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando for PS2
Listening: Lungs by Florence + the Machine (courtesy of Christina the Self-Righteous Drunk)

Fatter Than a Speeding Bullet

New site design. New slogan. New ways to bring you even more fat.

Actually, no, it’s going to be a lot of the same fat as before, but I hope you’ll find it as charming as ever.

The hiatus stretched out a bit longer than I expected, but I can tell you that the time didn’t go to waste. I have been doing more in the way of recovery, and making myself the top priority was definitely the right move to make.

I joined a group at the Emily Program that is a discussion group based around the book, Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnston. Think the title sounds a bit hippy-dippy? Wait till you read the first chapter! It starts off a little on the She-Ra side with a heaping dollop of good ol’ fashioned 1970’s consciousness raising, but if you can look past that rhetoric, there is a lot of great stuff in this book. It really pushes the idea of recovery for women through the use of myth and metaphor - seeing yourself and your struggles in stories that are often hundred, even thousands, of years old. What really makes it work for me is having the discussion to go along with it, and there is a great group of women tackling this with me. I really look forward to this group each week.

PhD Smiley has returned from maternity leave, thank the stars! Had a great session today and am feeling pretty empowered.

The Canadian and I, after many a discussion, have decided to set our sights a bit closer to Vancouver in order to wait out the (achingly, ridiculous, murderously snail-paced) slow processing of his immigration application. We settled on Seattle as it would be a relatively short drive for him to pop up to Vancouver to visit his son. I can tell you that I am absolutely in love with the idea of being back on the west coast. Not to mention that I am getting a serious grad school itch. Master of Library Sciences…..here I come! I will be the bad-assiest librarian. Just you wait. And I’m curious to know if any of you FatGrrl frequenters happen to be Seattlites? I would love to get the low down on moving strategies, neighorhoods, tips and tricks, etc.

Related to that is the issue of money. Alas, we can’t move without it. I had a few heart to hearts with Ellie and we threw around the idea of working with an ad network. We agreed that the top priority for FatGrrl was to remain a fat-friendly and eating disorder recovery-oriented site, so the presence of diet ads is a total No-No. But I wanted to tap your brains and get your ideas and thoughts. If I have the means to produce interesting and compelling content, would you mind the presence of text ads on the site? Would you find that it ultimately detracts from the site, or do you think it could be handled in a way that complements the site without getting in the way? Let me know!

Clearly there was much to say, so I will end here for now. It’s good to be back, and thanks for hanging in there with me. And for those of you who have particularly missed the Hound, here she is hanging out on the couch with me one day: