January 2011
1 post
Rad Fatties, Take Me Away
[Hiatus over. Still sad. Also, still fat, so onwards and upwards.]
[Oh yeah, and trigger warning for anyone who don’t want to read about the diet commercials and diet talk that’s frakking KILLING me.]
I have never felt quite so bad about myself as I do right now.
Hold on—give me a second to explain.
Over Christmas I was snowed in at my mom’s house. We weren’t...
November 2010
3 posts
Sadder Than Sad →
My dad passed away yesterday. You can read about how awesome he was here.
It’s been quiet here while he’s been sick, and it will be quieter still while I help my mom.
Someday, I know I will feel a little better.
My dad loved color, so I’ll be wearing my black polka dot dress with bright green teggings and cowboy boots. He will be wearing a satin Dale Ernhardt jacket, and that...
Time
Saturday brought a stomach ache that kept me bundled up in a blanket while the world spun round and fun things happened.
There are things I wanted to do. They didn’t get done.
Time is on my mind lately, more than usual. My dad is really sick and a girl can’t help but start thinking about time in a permanent, finite way. Will he be here for Christmas? When booking that business trip...
October 2010
4 posts
Big Fat Kiss-In (NYC edition) in the News
Oh my. I (with a sad sad heart) missed the Kiss-In. But I help out by sending off a press release about the event to the NY media. Let me tell you that Stacy and Aris and Substantia and Marilyn and all the Kiss-In organizers are amazing to have pulled this off with speed, humor and overall awesomeness.
Let’s all do more of this! This is exciting and positive and good. Every time we put the...
Kiss-In Tomorrow! Weee!
A group of wonderful women came up with the idea for a Kiss-In outside of the Marie Claire offices. I like like like. I whipped up a press release about it. Fast and dirty, but I wanted to get the word out with speed! I know there are other Kiss-Ins planned tomorrow—feel free to use the copy at will.
Activists Organize a Kiss-In to Protest Marie Claire Article
New York, NY. Activists...
"I Like Thin People the Best"
I’ve been going home a lot on the weekends because of my dad. This weekend was extra bonus special because my niece(6) and nephew(10) were up visiting from Florida. I love those two little people more than a basket of baby unicorns.
Delaney, the niece, and I were up late on Saturday bedazzling a sock (we were practicing before moving onto a t-shirt). She turned to me in her princess...
September 2010
3 posts
The Art of Asshattery
Few things scare me as much as a group of teenagers do. I am 35 and strong and sure but a group of fifteen-year-old boys makes my heart palpitate.
It’s not hard to imagine why. I was a fat-enough teenager and I was, in my own way, a bad ass. I still spent most of my young-adult life waiting for SOMEONE, anyone, to make a smart ass comment about my body. When I look back I want to slap...
So You Think You Can Zumba
Here’s the thing—I haven’t dieted or considered dieting since I got the FA bug last year. In fact, I’ll never do that again. I’ve read enough and heard enough and I believe enough to feel good about that decision. I am fat—I’m always going to be fat!
Whew, that’s such a relief.
And as it turns out, I’ve gained some weight in the past year....
Bad!
I was having so much fun writing this blog and then BLAM! I got hit over the head by a case of the terrible summers. Geez. This all escalated into super badness when my dad went in for a minor procedure and came out with a cancer diagnosis. He was a pretty sick guy before he went in (he has advanced COPD), but lung and liver cancer? Double punch. Not cool. Total fail.
I was already pretty down...
July 2010
2 posts
June 2010
14 posts
Arm(istice)
Dear Arms,
I’ve concealed you for a long time. Since I was in high school I’ve shrouded you in shrugs and cardigans and short-sleeve cardis even on the hottest summer days. I thought you deserved it. You were floppy, arms! Even during the great WW/Curves Experiment of 2004, you just sat there. As I shrunk down to a nimble size 18, you didn’t budge! Stubborn you.
I used to...
The Makers
As a lifelong reader (and grad school drop out), it’s impossible to avoid thinking about authors and their lives and whether or not those lives impact their work. Can I love a book written by someone who led a life I find questionable? Or, in Girthful Girl terms, is it possible that a woman who kicks kittens can write a poem that moves me?
I’ve never thought that way about the...
There's so much to say. . .
about FFFWeek. But I’m just so tired! And there’s ONE more night left, and then I’ll have some time to think and write about how much fun I’ve been having this week.
In the meantime, I will say:
I have met so many cool, gorgeous women that I can hardly keep track of them!
I adore Gaelle-Vanessa from Paris!
Gwen DeVoe is a rock star!
And wait, one more quick thing....
FFFW™ First Night Report
*There will be much better blog posts about the opening show of FFFWeek from the women of the Curvy Collective. This is just my own goofy version of things. OK, so I had to take a day off work to get things under control today. Media requests were coming in fast and furious—and, well, I needed a day off work anyway. My brain was close to mush. So I spent the morning sorting out the press....
FFFW™ Has Arrived
Sorry so quiet, but boy am I overbooked.
My regular job has gone a little nuts (we’re three people down as of next Friday—at the absolutely busiest time of the year). And Full Figured Fashion Week™ starts tomorrow. And even with all this craziness, I am really happy that six months ago I sent a Facebook email to Gwen Devoe asking if she needed a publicity gal to work on this...
I Remember Now
Devon over at Fat Nurse (I adore her style) found this miserable terrible Facebook fat hate page that lifted a picture from her blog as an illustration of why fat women shouldn’t wear leggings.
The page has sixty thousand fans in countries all over the world. The admin is barely literate and the folks commenting are dim bulbs, but still—SIXTY THOUSAND people thought that would be a...
"We must all be self esteem warriors." →
Excellent, clear, straight-forward primer on fat acceptance from Elizabeth Sutherland of the Spilt Milk blog. I know I’m a little late to this party, but why are there so many kick-ass fat chicks in Australia? What awesomeness is in the water over there?
Isn’t this just perfectly clear (and sensible)?
Much of the hatred directed towards fat people is seen as justified on the...
FFFW, Ahoy!
By day, I’m a pr director for a book publisher. I love my job. I help kids find our books, I plan our presence at shows like Comic Con and I work with some crazy-talented people. I count my lucky stars for having such a job.
But as much as I love my career, I need more. More, more, more. Turns out if I don’t have side projects and volunteer projects and other fun things to focus on,...
Newsflash! I Went Sleeveless and Lived!
I broke out the new flamingo dress for a backyard bbq today. Started out with a cardigan, and then wrapped that sweater around my waist and went sleeveless for the rest of the party because it was hot as Hades in August.
PEOPLE SAW MY ARMS AND THEY DIDN’T DIE. AND I DIDN’T DIE.
It was so nice to be free and cool and dressed appropriately for the weather.
Oh arms, I need to keep...
May 2010
8 posts
2 tags
Though shipping slays me, I buy about half of my clothes online. I prefer online shopping to going into brick and mortar stores (except Re/Dress—every time I go to Re/Dress I feel like I’m home). And maybe the reason for that is simple. Maybe it’s just because for the longest time I only had ONE store, Lane Bryant. And going into that one store was depressing. And if I...
Some weekends I volunteer at an animal shelter. I don’t play with kittens or walk dogs; I clean dirty dirty dog cages. I wear an old t-shirt and a pair of grey knee-length shorts along with a filthy pair of grass green Converse that are only suitable for shelter duty.
I would normally never leave my house in an outfit like that, but I’m certainly not going to throw on a dress and...
Two Whole Cakes Fatcast →
If you’re not listening, please start. Marianne and Lesley are fantastic.
Wished
This week I attended a powerful and just-plain-cool event called “Fat Politics and Sexuality in the Face of Hate.” The panelists where a who’s who of awesome:
Substantia Jones founder and photographer of The Adipositivity Project Lesley Kinzel blogger of fatshionista.com Kathleen LeBesco, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Arts and Distinguished Chair, Marymount Manhattan College;...
Concern
I think a friend was trying, so carefully and kindly, to tell me that she was worried about my health. She was talking about herself and her own health— it wasn’t directed toward me at all. And maybe I’m being paranoid. I have been eating like a college kid. Cheap and easy cereal and soup and cookies and burritos. And liquor. Lots of liquor and wine and beer.
It’s been on...
A Brief History of Clothes
Re/Dress is the store I wished for when I was 19 and stopped fitting into the mini-dresses at Contempo Casuals. But at 19 I couldn’t conceive of a store like that—my only option was Lane Bryant. I figured it was my own fault for eating too many cookies, and really, it could have been worse.
When I was a little, my dad would ferry me off to Phyllis’s House of Style on Christmas...
Why I'm Here
There are a billion lovely blogs written by a billion lovely fellow fat-n-fluffy folks pulsing through the internets. I know. But I want one too.
I never used the word “fat” or liked the word “fat” until my 34th year after I got my hands on a copy of the book Fat-O-Sphere from Marianne Kirby and Kate Harding. That book changed the game for me. It was a simple and straight-forward introduction...