Weighing What You Read, Let's Be So Happy This Year

Subtitle: Fat Hatred is soooo 2006

I'm going to ignore the non existent pressure of being the first of my colleagues to blog in this new shiny year...hell this new shiny DECADE.
On my walk home from work yesterday, I got to thinking about how my jeans were feeling snugger than usual. The thoughts that followed were the predictable Rube Goldberg-ing of my self image down the rabbit hole zeitgeist that has been the cultural moment of Hannah Montana, the death of two Brazilian supermodels from anorexia, and let us not forget Natalie Portman in Black Swan.

In short, I felt fat. Well, let's be honest... I am fat. My instinct when I re-remember my size in late December is to buy a crappy magazine detailing all the ways I can become someone else...the obvious...the eat less move more platitudes. Well, this year....I'm calling bullshit on that impulse.

Let's look at the facts:

I love my job.
I love my school.
I love my friends.
I love my family. (mostly)
I love my fella.
I have run (not walked mind you) 3 marathons while fitting into Lane Bryant's finery.

So why then, do I have to have a private meltdown every January about my waist to hip ratio? (With my luck a Doctor is reading this and preparing a comment with a litany of HORRIFYING studies detailing just how damn important that particular ratio is but I'll take my chances)

My life is pretty full, and so are my spanx. Must they be opposed?

So, for 2011................................................................................inhale......

I'm done giving my money to magazines that profit off of me feeling less than. I'm done giving my money to authors who want to sell me something that can't be sold.

This year, the only diet I am going on is a financial one. The money I spend on books will be books I want to read. Books that nourish and challenge me. Books and magazines that actually offer something. More Muriel Rukeyser!!!! (lots of her, and other size friendly feminists in our poetry section)

No more of the vapid glossy plateau- busting simulacrums that have repeated themselves for the last 40 years. I am going to spend my money locally, and only at stores that sell a size 14....(the new average for ladies in this here country.) I am going to buy local in season foods, from local farmers, local merchants. I am going to ignore national chains of most ilks. They make their money when we are fat and sad.


So, to all my chubby brethren, I say let us be strong this year, and be satisfied with what we have this very moment. Let us be so damn happy. If dropping 80 lbs is part of that, that's fine, but ....let's seek that change in a positive key. Let's love ourselves healthier. Let's buy books we want to read, clothes we look amazing in, food we love. Let's start that now. Not after we finish "ironically reading" a SELF magazine checklist written by a 21 year old intern who lives on a diet of Yogi tea and Fiber one.


...and to all my skinny cousins out there...perhaps this year you can resolve to treat yourself better as well...

...and if you are one of those people who already treats yourself and your cat to posh designer everythings...then...maybe this year you can challenge yourself to find beauty in diversity. Read, live and love a outside of your comfort zone... (us fatties do it all the time!!!)

All my love to anyone who gave me their precious time to read this little rant. Happy New Year to everyone...just as you are.

Kate's Holiday Tip #3..../ It feels like you are all here...in the store...right now!!!!

As if I need to exhibit any more proof of my suspect childhood...here comes Kate's second to last Holiday tip. Sigh.


Imagine everyone today....as a deer.

So- for whatever reason, when I am in large crowds, I start to imagine everyone as deer. I imagine them as the deer version of themselves...skinny jeans, glasses, baby bjorns, spandex, converse.....whatever they are wearing, they continue to wear, but as deer...deer with purses, messenger bags and helmets, deers with bags of gifts, and 20oz of hot coffee...

I have done this for as long as I can remember. When it happens- I find it soothing to think of people as my favorite spirit animal.

So during this stressful and frantic final week before gifty Mc-Gorge town....remember you can cover everyone on your list in this one store...for reals...then ...take a moment to breathe, close your weary eyes....and imagine a deer in a plaid scarf blogging at a messy desk in the back of the bustling booksmith.

Now, I'm gonna go get some free Taza chocolate from that pretty deer at the front.

Oh deer.

seasonal self-care...won't you join me?

I've been waiting to use this image in my weekly chitter-chat, and today just feels right. We are officially at the top of the pain roller coaster referred to as the "holidays". The time of year when you get real close with your therapist, revisit old addictions, cry, go deeply into debt and resolve to fix the aforementioned hullabaloo. I want none of it this year. This year I am going to do this thing differently. This is the year ,as Dr. Oz would say, "the year of self-care". I am going to make a menu of ways to avoid the fevered hell that is late November to mid February.

Gift reduction.

Everyone on my list is getting a used or discount book. (you're welcome)
If you are on my list and lucky I may make you some neat-erific infused gin thing, it's cheap and useful.

Relaxation.

I am going to work long and weird hours avoiding family functions. (soothing)

Serenity.

I am going to start weight lifting, and dropping the weights, and grunting. OR. I am going to take up sewing.

Celebration.

I am going to use lotion this winter. I will spend too long at CVS deciding between Dove and Olay. I am going to use my extra care bucks. (p-a-r-t-y-t-o-w-n)

I am going to see Amy Sedaris...and learn more poor people crafting techniques.

Acceptance.

I am going to enjoy Turkey Day. (yes I know what we did to the indigenous peoples of this continent, but you can't take this one shrapnel of joy from me today.)

I'm going to go to my brother's house, teach the kids to whittle and swear. Then, I shall eat and drink too much. I will arise the next morn and purge it out during a "5k turkey trot of contrition."

Let us be strong together. We can get through this. I know we can.

Just give the gift of cheap books...(and maybe some infused gin)

that's what the holidays are about. new ideas. and forgetting them.

forgive me handsome sir...

I was shelving with about 60lbs worth of hardcovers in my arms when I saw a tall handsome fella browsing my section. As any red blooded American coward would do I weaseled over his way to feign shelving for that section. When I looked over his shoulder, I saw that he was reading from a Nook. You know, B&N's answer to the kindle. My heart skipped a beat and I thought to myself...."why is it always the pretty ones?" nah-- what I really thought was..."say something say something!" so I said something. This is how the conversation unfolded.

me- Oh hi! (bats eyelashes a little too ardently) are you browsing from our aisles and buying from them? (chin pointing to his device since hands are holding 60lbs of books)

handsome- uh, (long uncomfortable pause) I guess so...

me- so the thing is, we want you here and all, but if you don't buy from us it'll be hard to provide you with this browsing opportunity you seem to be getting a lot out of...

(ok I didn't say that)

I really said...

"if you only buy from them-- stores like this could go away"

handsome- (nods head a bit too rapidly, smiles (sigh)) and says --

yea, I know

And so I waited till he went downstairs (to presumably get away from me...) before I shuffled over to Paul to recount the affair (in 3 minutes or less Dana I swear)

Progress is good. Change is good. Technology is good.

Awareness is great.

Being aware of the people around you, how they are surviving, how they buy their food, keep themselves clothed---these are the details that matter....how we live. Your money is your vote.

thanks for your support.

(I promise my next post will be less commerce-y)

Hungry Eyes...Influence and Duende...Sorta

I chose this title just so while you are reading this....the song will be stuck in your head and contributing to any unintentional pathos found herein. Yesterday after work I swam home and turned on the AC and TLC....(the ladies' channel) I watched "Say Yes to the Dress" and ate some goldfish while reading poetry by Louise Gluck. I find no irony in this.

I then went on Facebook wherein I saw that my fella had taken the "I write like" test, and apparently...according to this kitschy little monstrosity....he writes like David Foster Wallace. I of course had to put in my "work" and low and behold...I too write like DFW. This got me thinking...doesn't everyone writing/ thinking in this postpostpost- modernity kinda write like DFW....in a reference rich simulacrum of conscilience? Then I found this AP article on the whole phenomena http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j93L3sF-VA-F548doKe70er5uD0wD9H0DAU81
The little nugget about Herman Melville writing more like Steven King than himself is just delightful.

It brings up an interesting idea about influence. That is why when I write I like to have reality television on in the background. I like to know a lot about Angelina Jolie and Ochocinco. I think it keeps me present and keeps my brain from swimming too deeply in Lorca's duende. I think it is important that we treat all media...well....most media with care...and by care I mean...acknowledgment of its presence...because whether we like it or not it is here to stay...and I'd like to have a really clear idea as to what it is I am making fun of, or criticizing...and why.

The book that I can't stand to have open in front of me.

The blank kind. The sort in which I was told, all through my years as an art student, that I should be filling with sketches, ideas, images that may or may not develop.
Can't open the things without wanting to run away. I made an effort recently to give it a real go, to be a man about it and keep a damn sketchbook, but that one, too, lies collecting dust in a corner of the studio, the pictures on its first twenty or so pages nothing more than brittle exoskeletons, destined never to expand, never to be a painting on my wall.
I float through life. My mind is rarely where I am; my hands count out change for you but they do it in rhythm with the music that was playing the last time they held a brush. How can I set them to work on a sketch, a plan? They only work on the real thing. How can I expect myself to grab a wave from the river and put it on paper and close the book? Will it not dry and darken; what is left when I open it up again?
I paint in the moment. It gives me comfort (when I'm not worrying about it) that I can only feel like I know what I'm doing at the exact moment that I am doing it. Sketching isn't doing it, for me. Sketch books weigh hundreds of pounds in my hands. Maybe I'll make a sculpture out of all of my abandoned sketchbooks someday.