Since many parts of the world are getting colder right now I thought why not try something different than the old Tank Top Tuesday posts and go in the opposite direction: Winter Wear! I also hope to do a coat shopping guide/options post soon.  Please see below for information on how you can submit your own pics and info for future posts. Thanks.

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This week’s Fats in Winter Wear submission comes from Heather!

This is from last christmas! Beautiful sweater from Torrid and the necklace was made by me sterling silver cypress leaf with quartz chips and swarovski crystals.  Finding good, attractive, winter clothing for fatties is not an easy task! We’re often stuck with sweaters with pictures of kittens- which is fine if you really love kittens, but it’s just not my style. I hate high necks, so I really love the low neckline and the gathered fabric and this has become my number one favorite winter sweater.

Bit of a ranty post, folks. You know how I roll.

Have you had this happen?
You’re talking to some person about yourself and you refer to yourself as fat, feeling all full of activism and pride, when the person stops you with a look of horror and exclaims, “You are NOT fat!!!” Ugh! It’s almost as though admitting you are fat there in makes them fat…or something. It’s bullshit. It’s their hang up, not yours. And here’s the thing, you have every right to identify as anything you want to. Period. No one can take that from you.

This time of year makes these situations all the more difficult with the endless presence of food. But we are strong…no one can tell us we’re wroooooong! Sorry, my inner Pat Benatar does tend to come out occasionally. I personally believe that it is vital to assert your preferred identity as something wholly your own and in no way a reflection of others. When people try to take this from you it is rude, disrespectful, but also very fucking belittling. As though you couldn’t possibly know or understand how you yourself think/feel, etc. Ugh!

When faced with this situation, I quickly and calmly attempt to educate them on their misstep. Not in any way rude or overly aggressive, but again calmly and as simply as possible. Most people receive my little schpeel of info easily and even tend to ask questions…but then you get these insistors! They insist XYZ is bad/unhealthy/the Devil! Yes, I still attempt to explain to them that food has no moral value. If they get even more insistent, I smile and deliberately walk away, if I can. If I cannot and I don’t know the person I will attempt a polite, “well this is going nowhere” with a giant cheesy grin. Why? Because fuck them, that’s why!

Why do we let people walk all over us and then apologize to them on top of it? WHY? There’s no reason! Apologize for nothing you had zero control over! I am sick of hearing people say “sorry” for every little fucking thing! Stop it right now! You have no reason to be sorry. It’s some bullshit social construct either foisted upon us or by our own design, in either case I am throwing that off and away for good. No more, “Sorry” when someone bumps into me or rudely steps on my feet. I mean, why the hell should I be sorry? THEY SHOULD!

I am done with people pushing their prejudices and baggage on me. DONE! And I feel so much better about myself and social gatherings. I even went to a party the other night and found myself chatting with all kinds of people I’d never met before and I had a blast. Body stuff didn’t even come up…not once! Shocking!

So yes, when someone is rude to me, I tell them. It’s important to me that someone tell them and since most people are fearful of a social faux pas . Well I had no say in the building of such social constructs, honesty is best so long as you’re not rude about it. Civility is important. Calm and intelligent discussions are vital! These are the things we are lacking in society today. You don’t see much of that in films or television…it’s up to us to create the world we want to live in.

And because I had a shit morning and spilled my perfectly crafted coffee all over my kitchen in an attempt to make myself something for breakfast  besides coffee I will leave you with the above to consider for  yourself. I really need to finish this second coffee before anything else happens. ha-ha!

I found it on ye olde Craigslist and just couldn’t pass it up! It’s a SCHWINN “Jaguar” Ladies!!! I love it and got it for a steal and it’s a solid, steel frame thing. The guy repairs bikes all of the time and sells them, even offered additional services if I needed. Super cool!

I have wanted a bike for about four years, but always talked myself out of it. First, the money was always tight, still it but like I said the price was right as well as the timing. Next was the visibility of it, I mean, you’re like just out there! And the thing I still haven’t gotten over and perhaps won’t for some time: Fear of injury! I am still dealing with pain and stiffness in my knees. One is more stiff/sore while the other is a pulled hamstring. Neither seem to heal and I personally think that living upstairs only exacerbates them daily. I remember just a couple of months ago running around with my Puggyman in the morning or being able to sprint out to the front lawn for our walk. Ugh!

But you know what? All of that still isn’t enough to keep me from getting a bike! Because I have stopped giving a damn what other people think, I want to do what makes me happy and it has been twenty…Yes, you read that right…TWENTY YEARS since I’d been on a bike! And I fully intend to Glam-up my bike, too! I want to paint it to match this helmet…which I must have:

This TMI Tuesday post is about life skills! This one is totally safe for work as there is no images or even explicit descriptions…but I may swear. If this doesn’t interest you, do come back tomorrow for your regularly scheduled random fatty talk right here on my blog-a-ma-thing. Thanks! <3

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Sometimes things from your childhood hit you from out of nowhere in adulthood. I don’t really like when this happens, but what can ya do? I do find that once I have addressed or acknowledged it that it can help me process/self-work and move on. Yes, our childhoods shape us in ways we can’t truly know the depth of, but I also think that acknowledging this can help us move ahead and develop better futures for ourselves. I can only speak of my own experiences, of course. It amazes me how people we know, even if they grew up similarly, how very different their experiences can be from my own.

I was having lunch with two good friends the other day when we started to talk about housekeeping. Some of us are neat freaks, others are tidy with a side of clutter and then there is me: clueless! Seriously! Talking to these ladies made me realize, though I’d had an inkling for awhile, that I grew up with few actual normal life skills. Specifically when it comes to cleaning one’s home. No one showed me or taught me how to do such things growing up and I have suffered from this ignorance.

You see, I grew up in a very messy house. Well, that’s not quite it. Hmm…I grew up in a disgusting and filthy home. We lived in the same duplex for ten years. We moved there a few months before my fourth birthday…or was it my fifth? Anyway, my dad worked retail and thus his hours were always in flux. My mom stayed home in bed, literally. She pretty much just sat in bed and read books all day. She would occasionally bake and almost always burn whatever it was she was baking. I see now that she was most likely suffering from severe depression if not undiagnosed bi-polar. But she wouldn’t clean the house or do dishes and only ever did laundry when it was an absolute necessity. Though the first couple of years we lived there we didn’t have a dryer and I do remember “helping” her hang the laundry on a line in our miniscule backyard.

It is difficult to describe the state of our home. Basically, there was a pathway to walk from room to room, but outside of that there was clothing, trash-mostly paper, random things like toys or shoes and all sorts of other nonsense. It’s still not quite what I remember, but you get the gist I hope. My room was a disaster, always. Laundry never went into drawers or closets and I don’t recall where clean stuff even went…just that I would often grab from whatever was on the top layer of the mass pile that was my room, basically. It is with some lingering shame that I admit to having to wear socks and even underwear more than once or twice in a row. I know that I was little and didn’t know any better and my parents weren’t exactly aware of it, but I learned very young to stop asking for things, so I probably just didn’t want a fuss. Boy how this way of thinking still fucks with me to this very day. I work on it constantly, but I have a very hard time asking for anything, especially help.

I think my dad cooked dinner more often than not, unless he was working late. Each parent, I think, did only the dishes required for that particular meal and it’s consumption. Our sink was always full of dirty dishes and our counters, well, I don’t know that I ever saw our counters as they, too were full and covered always. The few times we did a big cleaning bonanza it was always because of something bad. The landlord was coming over or a threat of eviction or whatever. Never a good reason, ever ! Because of this I struggle with bouts of high anxiety anytime my husband wants to spring clean or move furniture around…which is often. It is only recently that I figured out why that is. It helps to know, but the anxiety is still there and quite heavy.

Growing up I was never allowed to have friends over and honestly wouldn’t want to eventually as I soon saw how different everyone else’s houses were. My best friend from K-6th grade, Riana, never even saw the inside of my home all of those years. I spent nearly every day at her house a few blocks away. I would never say why, just that my mom didn’t want anyone over or a million other excuses. I see how sad that is now, how much shame I’ve carried with me all of these years. Ugh! When we did do a massive cleaning one time, due to an eviction threat no doubt, I did have my friend Summer over to spend the night once. This was shortly before we moved out of that house and I’d just gotten a kitten…well, found a kitten, long story. But I remember the house being pretty clean, though not to my current standards.

When we moved to a new house that my dad was trying to actually buy, we kept the place pretty nice. We had smaller stashes of clutter, but the floors were open and clean because the house was also being shown to possible buyers. That was a nightmare, actually. I finally had my own room though and I kept it pretty damned tidy. The only clutter was in my closet and we got rid of most of what would have been clutter during the move. I had friends over all of the time and I loved that. I actually felt a sense of pride in my room and home. It was a new feeling, but a good one! And I snuck boys in my room…but don’t tell my dad! Ha-ha!!!

So, you can imagine that when I moved out with my abusive boyfriend later that these life skills, such as cleaning/cooking/laundry, were basically non-existent. I was depressed most of the time and though working full time at 16, everything else sort of fell to the wayside. I did my own laundry…but not much else. That time of my life was sort of a limbo anyway. Living in one room and all, it wasn’t like there was much to clean anyhow. Work was a refuge from the abuse and depression and I spent a good chunk of my paycheck on clothes and accessories there anyway.

When my husband and I moved in together, well, I didn’t tell him about how I grew up. Or it never came up? I don’t really know. I know that we had next to nothing and I went to what is now Big Lots every week to buy more necessities. I learned to do dishes, though we still do them differently from one another. I still put all of my laundry, yes mixed, into a cold wash and a hot dryer. I don’t iron. I dusted for the first time in my life about two months ago when I discovered a Swiffer Duster unopened in our closet. It was like magic! We do vacuum at least once a week if not more due to the Puggyman and his double coat of fur love.

We’re neither neat-nicks nor slobs. I’m the queen of clutter, but it’s manageable. Right now my biggest issue is clothes as one of my dresser drawers in broken and thus a pile has been placed beside it. I am working on folding laundry rather than shoving it. It’s still a struggle. My childhood still haunts me when I least expect it. I know now that my parents should never have had children…in my opinion! They got married because of me and well, they should have sought the unpopular solution at the time. My dad worked and worked and had neither the time nor the energy for much more. Though his weekend-ish days off were fab as he would take us to parks. I don’t have a terrible childhood, just a different one than most. While my school chums would worry about their mom “killing them” for scuffed shoes or stained shirts, I never felt such pressures. For the most part my parents let me do as I want in some ways. I sought a life outside of my home out of necessity. I hardly regret that. But it is a different thing entirely when one was never shown or taught how to clean a bathroom or carpet.

These simple life skills we all take for granted I have struggled with my entire life to catch up in some way. It always seemed an unimportant thing when I’d rather be at a concert or kissing boys. I am far from a domestic goddess. I enjoy cooking and baking now, but I fought that for years, too. I almost wore my ignorance in these things as a badge of honor for awhile. No longer! With every new skill I toss out such old ways of thinking and press onward and hopefully upward and beyond the shame and guilt of old. It may be worth mentioning that my little brother and sister, now in their twenties, didn’t grow up quite the same way as I did. They had chores to tend to and were made to do homework. I was asked if I did my homework and my only chore was taking out the garbage. Though I suffered through catechism while they did not. It was just very different, though we lived together. I don’t know that I will ever know why.

But I know that I can’t be the only one. And it is because of this that I bare my soul here for you to read. Thank you.

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I am taking submissions from anyone who wants to participate in the fats in winter wear posts! Email your pics here: notblueatall@notblueatall.com, please include the name you’d like in the post, a blog or etsy shop you wanna plug and  your fatty philosophies. Have fun with it!

This is the tenth and last in a series of things that have helped me, I believe in, or people have asked me to share. Basically, things I do or think or whatever that have helped me be a better person, activist and positive fat lady. Check out  Step 1,  Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6, Step 7,Step 8 and Step 9.

Step 10: Share!

This is perhaps  the best and most fun step of this series: sharing! Woo hoo! I mean, sharing is fun, dude. I love to bake simply because I then get to share my goodies with my friends and family. Sharing can be hard, too. I mean, I still have a difficult time sharing certain things about myself with strangers or acquaintances. Y’all know I am far from afraid of TMI topics, but I mean simple things like my fat blog and activism…I hide behind the words I use and this makes me sad. I should be proud of what I do and I am, usually…but it’s hard sometimes! But let’s break this down, shall we?

Share yourself with others. You can take this in any direction you like. Share your whole self! Don’t hold back! You’re already being brutally honest with yourself and others and you stopped giving a damn what other people think…so go for it! I firmly believe that one of the greatest parts of existing, and how we can grow as  a society, is simply to share what we know and love with others. Why else exist? To keep all of your wisdom and experiences to yourself? No thanks. It feels good to share, too!

Share what you know and what you’ve experienced! Ever feel like you’re the only one to have X happen to you? Or are the only one to have X problem? You don’t know if you don’t share! I didn’t know that I had hidradenitis suppurativa until I saw other gals sharing their experiences and talking about what it’s like to live with HS. Had they not shared this, I would have continued to feel like a freak! And sharing my story of abuse survival with you all here has allowed me to gain a new perspective on what I’ve been through and have been touched by so many other abuse survivors who have reached out to me as well. No, I think sharing is the best part of being human…well, sex is good, too! Ha-ha! That’s sharing, too, though!

When you keep things to yourself, positive or negative, it weighs you down. You feel burdened or guilty or shameful. That’s  bullshit because you’re awesome and even if you have a terrible problem, we can’t always figure these things out on our own, ya know? SHARE! Share with a friend or relative or me! But do share. I know that I often need a sounding board to work through things, even minor things. I love it when I have the right person to talk things out with, it can even sound like I’m talking to myself, but I need that other person’s reactions and thoughts and opinions and experiences to push me to my own creative solution or idea. I can’t be alone in that…can I?!

You may be thinking, “Well, no one ever shared with me. I work too hard for what I have. Why the fuck should I share?!” That is precisely why you should share! Share BECAUSE no one shared with you. Share because you can! Share because it feels good and it looks good on ya! Start off small if it scares you. Talk to strangers at bus stops and check out lines. Share your thoughts on baby hedgehogs and rooster art! Just share and share alike and watch as others feel the positive impact of your sharing and pay it forward in their own special way. It’s magnificent!

Share your creative endeavors! Share your skills! Share your talents and abilities! Don’t let fear or worry hold you back…you’re too awesome for that! Share a hug and share the love and share your cupcakes and carrots and puppy-love and kitty snuggles! Share it! Share a smile, a wink, a nod, a factoid, a bit of good news or share your story with a trusted friend or the world. Sharing will lift a burden from you and help you see things in a new way. Perspective you cannot buy, sharing is free and it can get you just that.

In a time where sharing is considered socialism, and somehow that’s a dirty word, why not be a radical bastard and share the fuck out of everything you see fit?! Share your time with a neighbor or old folks home. Share your dinner leftovers, too! Share your rarely-worn clothing with a fellow fatty and spread the fatty love all over the damn place! Sharing is like the best drug, you try it once and you’re hooked and next thing you know you wanna share it with all of your friends so they can get high on sharing, too! Just please be mindful and try not to share too many germs…wash your hands people. Ha-ha!

Share what you have learned from Fat Liberation/Acceptance/Pride! Share your thoughts and feelings about it! Share your feelings on diet talk when the subject comes up. Most people only know the societal norm and would never come across our radical ideas and movement. Share this amazing self-love lifestyle! Let people know that they don’t have to go through life hating themselves, they are worth more than that and so are you! Let them know that it IS a choice once you realize it.

Share the steps of this series. Share what makes you happy! Share what works for you to keep you sane or healthy or feeling more like  your authentic self. Share not because it’s “that time of year” *groan* but because you just want to! Share what has given you strength when you didn’t think you had it. Share what you’ve been through and stop keeping secrets that are a course of pain or shame. Be brave! Because I know you can do it and I know how it can impact other people. It can only lead to good, folks. It’s so very worth it and so are you!

“Ideas should be worth spreading. There is no delight in owning anything unshared.” ~Seneca

Have you tried any of the steps? I would love to hear from you! In fact, I would love some guest posts with your thoughts/experiences/pics/etc from the series. Please hit me up! notblueatall at notblueatall dot com

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