Musings and glee.

I was reading over at FatFu last night and Meowser posted about Pseudonymity on the net.

Back in the day when I started my first online journal I was really paranoid about people in my life outside the net reading it or knowing about it for that matter. Honestly that lasted all of six months then I said fuck it, I got tired of thinking about it. These days if you google my given name, the name of this blog etc you'll find a whole shitload of stuff and that's perfectly ok with me.

I haven't used a pseudonym in probably more than a decade for anything. The very first piece of writing I had published was under a pseudonym and it felt so weird to me. I own my words. It felt weird and disingenuous to look at something I quite honestly slaved over and it did not have my name on it.

Since then if I say it, 98% of the time my name is on/associated with it. And that suits me just fine.

However I will say I have a space somewhere on the internet where I talk about things I am not comfortable talking about here or other places where people know me. For awhile I struggled with this, however my number one concern is making sure that I feel okay while I'm working some shit out. I have a few friends who read that, and one in particular with whom I talk about it.

Strangely I'm one of those people who talk a lot of the time just makes me feel worse. I like to write it down and work it out for myself. Which sometimes admittedly doesn't work all that well.

On a fashion note I had a gander at some of the new Lip Service stuff for 08 and I am again disappointed. Nothing I liked comes in my size. Admittedly I am really seriously considering losing a dress size.

Honestly it's not just Lip Service clothes that put this into my head, and it's not the whole Fantasy of Being Thin as discussed quite awhile back at Shapely Prose. I have long given up the dreams about thinness.

1. Thin is healthy and good. When I was thin, I was not health and I was a cranky hungry unhealthy mother fucker. And the thing that made me feel cheated was that I was doing the "healthy" thing. I was working out and eating an uber healthy diet. And I felt like shit.
2. Thin is beautiful. Again I felt cheated. Frankly once I go below at the most a size 10 I just look weird. My proportions are not made for that. Also, because my health was not great my skin looked fucking horrible, my hair looked bad, I had a hell of a time finding clothing that fit. I did not feel beautiful in any way shape or form.
3. Thin makes it all easier. That was a huge thing for me. My life did not get magically easier when I hit the lower end of the "healthy BMI" range. I still had all the same problems, I had some brand new and shittier problems.

That all said the following is not about the myth. And I know damn well this sort of thing isn't looked upon favorably in the FA circles but I don't give a fuck.

As I've mentioned before I am fairly firmly in the area called Inbetween. There are a lot (A LOT) of plus sized clothing that just is too big for me. Frequently things are just enough too big in odd places so the fit gets fucked all to hell. It fits in the hips but is too big in the waist, it fits in the shoulders but not in the boobs, it's supposed to graze knee length and comes down to mid calf. And don't get me started on pants right now I will yell.

On the flip side I am just ( ) that much off (measurements wise) for a lot of straight sized clothing. Things are too small in the boobs, fit at the hips but not in the low waist thus giving me hang over of doom in the love handle area, fits in the waist/hips but not in the ham. Shirts fit in the boobs but not around the upper arm hence my aversion to cap sleeves, fits in the boobs but rides up to show my whole stomach when that is not the idea.

I spend way more time than is probably necessary searching and searching and searching for clothes that fit right. And what irritates me is that out of necessity I've had to stick to the same silhouettes for so long because I have such a hard time finding things that fit and my sewing skills are not quite up to actual tailoring just yet and gods know I don't have the money to have it done by a pro.

So where does that leave me?

Honestly (and boo hiss if you wanna) it leaves me with the bottom line that on my frame and body a small big of weightloss or gain would go a long way. A few pounds in either direction means pretty much I could be solidly plus sized, or solidly far end of straight sizing. I've been resisting it and not wanting to think about it for months but it is actually the truth.

Does this mean suddenly I am super pro diet and whatnot? No. What it means is that I finally (after 31 goddamn long years) in tune enough with my body and familiar enough with my body to be able to make a conscious well thought out decision as to what to do. That is a huge thing for me. For the first time in my life I feel like I have serious and tangible autonomy in terms of my body and what I'm doing with it.

I played at and tickled autonomy for years, especially in terms of decoration. Body mods, tattoos, wacky clothing and hair but, I wasn't here. Here being the state of mind I'm in right now.

I am clear. I am aware and my thought processes aren't muddied by politics, should and should not thoughts, other people none of it.

That alone makes me very happy.

Where does this lead.

I am not going to get or be thin. Barring serious medical illness it's just not going to happen and that makes me happy and it's okay.

I also absolutely do not believe that me going down a dress size will create some alternate reality where I am rich, fabulous and everything is super peachy.

What does it all mean?

It means that I am currently this instant open to a change in my body. It means that for the first time in a long time my eyes aren't clouded and I think,no I believe I can make a decision one way or the other.

It doesn't mean that I am going to run out and half kill myself trying to lose that 10 pounds. To tell the truth I don't even know if my body would approve of that.

It does mean that I am enjoying the feeling that emotionally, I could probably handle adding a fairly rigorous exercise routine to my life and it doesn't feel bad to think about it. I don't feel like I might do that and go off my fucking nut and start working out for hours on end. That feeling that fear isn't there.

It doesn't mean that I don't want to be fat or I hate fat or anything of the kind. Although I'm sure someone will get that from it.

Tell you the truth I don't care. I am actually very proud of myself for coming to this right now.

And I think I'm spent there is something wrong with my neck and it hurts like the proverbial mother fucker.

Homo Out.

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Things I think about.

First of all let me mention that watching Rachel from F-word and Mo Pie from BFD this morning was a pleasure. Watch the clips on Youtube here and here. I won't spoil it for you but it was very good and Miss Rachel your glasses gave me glasses envy. And Mo that haircut is love. Srsly.

Oh also before I forget Colleen from The Pretty Pear posted (mm alliteration) some great savings and coupon codes here.

While I'm pimping links you should go read what Meowser had to say about the truthfully awful article in "Bitch" magazine about the Fatosphere. To tell you the truth I didn't even read the whole article when I thumbed through Bitch the first thing to mind is that the author was lazy and irresponsible and I couldn't bring myself to read the rest.

Honestly (granted I am no journalist) if you are going to write something shouldn't you at least appear to make a little bit of an effort to research? Or type your key words into google and get lucky? Gods.

Next up I want to discuss something I think about frequently. All too often I hear religion (usually Christianity) as the basis for someone disapproving of one thing or another. Be it interracial relationships, homosexuality, whatever have to wonder. And I've asked a few people this question but most don't take it seriously and start spouting selected bits of scripture from parts of the bible they themselves don't so strictly adhere to(that is a whole other entry).

What if you are doing it wrong? What if you in all your pious disdain are absolutely incorrect?

To take it a step further what if when you die, you go for your judgement and stand in the presence of God and Jesus and they look at you and ask why did you condemn (as my favorite example) homosexuals?

Do you dare to spout scriptures at them and look like you did a job well done?

What if then, they just shake their heads and every gay person who has ever died before you is there in heaven, in the bosom of your very own God and God and Jesus look at you and say, "where was the love in your heart? Where was your compassion?"

And then you get kicked out.

Maybe not the big H-E double hockey sticks but you don't get invited to the party because you didn't follow the simplest instructions of your own religion. What would you do?

I don't want to fling scripture because that isn't the point. The point to me is that at the base of most religions there is love and care for fellow man. My point is, you are not God. No matter how fervently you believe it is not your place to tell anyone else what God thinks of them.

Granted it's human nature but still. I see way too many people who don't even try and that bothers me at a spiritual level. It hurts.

Mostly what I'm saying is examine your words before they leave your mouth, and don't preach to me if you're blatantly disregarding some of the most important parts of what you're preaching about.

That's been on my mind for awhile and now onto something else.

Womanhood.

I have been acutely aware of Womanhood (yes with a capital W) since I was a very very small child. Aware of, in awe of and fascinated by the (luckily for me) diverse women around me. However I will admit that at one point in childhood probably around age 5-6 I was irate to learn that I too would grow up and be a woman.

I blame Superman for this.

I loved Superman. I had Superman sheets, I ran around in Superman Underoos (do they even make those anymore?) with a red towel tied around my neck and I saved everyone. I was 100% certain that I would grow up, change my name to Clark Kent, be a reporter and in fact save the world. There was little anyone could say to dissuade me from that.

Until I understood that since I was a girl I would not be Superman and I was devastated. Not because being a girl was bad, or that being a woman would suck, no I was mad because I wouldn't be Superman. I wasn't mollified until I discovered Dolly Parton and Wonder Woman. That is to say I discovered my love of boobs.

My early love for Dolly, Wonder Woman, drag queens and their ilk is probably the very foundation of my insane love for boots, all things sparkly and really high heels.

However my interest in Womanhood in all it's fantastic permutations has never wavered. Although I have grown out of interviewing random people. I did that a lot as a kid. I would sit and ask questions about someone until they shoo'd me away. I have always loved hearing the things that women generally only ever tell other women.

As I got a little older I started to think about, no obsess over what kind of woman I wanted to be.

I decided I wanted no part of the stereotypical "good girl" experience. None of it.

I wanted to fight, fuck, curse like a sailor when I wanted, do any and every little thing. Eat a lot, live life in ways that will leave me filled and satisfied.

I'm still working on it.

Not much else on my mind today.

Homo Out.

Tags: links random, random, womanhood, musings

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