To live today is to live in a world that wants to diminish us.
To be pressed upon, constantly, to be less than, to live in distrust.
They do it with pharmaceuticals, they do it with supplements and powders and promises.
They do it with bars and shakes and crisps and keep us as your hostages.
Fat free, caffeine free, sugar free, nutrient free fantasies of tasteful humanity.
They poke and they prod us with lies and disgust.
They bind and staple and nip and tuck.
They rob our youth of hopes and dreams and possibilities.
They rob our middle age of self assurance and deny our capabilities.
Longing becomes the norm. Hate becomes reborn.
They control us with guilt. Stitching our flesh into your demoralizing quilt.
“Shame on You…” for being so fat?
“Shame on You…” for being healthy, too?
“How dare you not do as we tell you to do!”
We are not to be diminished, contorted, controlled or prescribed.
We are done with your idiosyncratic lies!
I will not be weighed like so much meat.
My flesh has value and won’t accept defeat.
You cannot separate my fat from me.
You won’t get the best of me!**
I’m no more and no less human than you.
Yet you insist, “But I’m better than you!”
The fuck you are and the hell with your lot.
It’s my guts, my glory, my intestines without knots!
Keep your scalpels and calipers and body fat ratio machines.
Wanna know where you can stick your oversold thin fantasy?
Nothing tastes as good as a free mind feels.
But you’ll never know when you’re stuck on their hamster wheels!
I smile a thoughtful smile, wider than my hips.
I love with my whole self, not a smaller version of what you sell as “health.”
I won’t sit or back away quietly.
I’m far too busy fighting for equality!
So yell if you must, from your trucks, cars and bikes.
I’ll keep on keepin’ on, stepping up to bullhorns and mics!
We are fat! We are free! We have pride and can be healthy!
Stop with the judgment. End all the shame!
Our bodies and minds are not playing that game!

So, yeah…um…I watched the film “Howl” Friday night and while I didn’t enjoy the film as much as I’d hoped (or wasn’t in that frame of mind or something), the writing, the poetry, it really stuck with me. And the above just sort of poured out of me Saturday morning. I miss poetry. I went through quite an obsessive phase. I read all I could and wrote until my hands would cramp and it’s all gone! The memories of what I read and wrote. And all of my poems are long gone, too. I used to only write when I was depressed and for a lot of time that worked out well. This is probably the first that wasn’t about a specific person or instance. Like I said, it just came out. Ha!
Thanks for reading.
<3
S

Last night I watched the last two episodes of “My So-Called Life” and can I just say how great that show is? Is! As in, it totally stands the test of time. Not was. I felt like it was just about to really explode and then realized that there were only 19 episodes. I was a little sad, but also semi-glad because some of the plot lines that they’d laid out would have been hella crazy drama later on had they continued (Ricky staying with his gay teacher, Bryan possibly getting confronted by Jordan…so much stuff!).

I see a lot of myself in the Angela character. A lot! Like that tug-of-war between the good girl and the bad girl. Oh man, that was me! My normal friends thought I was this wild child, while my newer and sometimes older and usually stoner friends thought I was this goody-goody. My friend Joyce is so the Rayanne character that it was sometimes hard to watch the show. I’d forgotten about her sleeping with a mutual friend of ours and how much that hurt me until something similar happened on the show! And how many times did that happen to me? Too many! I’d share my crush/love/lust for some guy and next thing you know a very good friend is sleeping with the lug. *sigh*

That last episode was made of butterflies in your stomach and yearning for something true. Jordan Catalano, as played by still hotter than lava Jared Leto, just fucking dug into me with his eyes made of pure blue crystal wonder. I mean?! Whew! I needed that glass of wine while watching that one, I tell you what! And poor Bryan Crakow, who wrote a love letter for Jordan to give to Angela to make up for his indiscretion with Rayanne, when Angela confronted him about the letter? That moment, that was some heavy, amazing shit!

But you know which character felt the most authentic for me? Ricky Vasquez. Not only did it make me think of my BFF J, but also of some of the boys I hung out with in Jr. High. One in particular, well, I hadn’t a clue at the time, in fact I had a mad crush on him for the last few months of 8th grade, but I sort of gave him a nickname that I am hoping didn’t stick. We were in a play together and well, he was so dreamy (in a nerdish-preppy way) I couldn’t help but crush on him. One day during rehearsal, he jumped off of a platform on the stage and well, he had a flair to it and I dubbed him Tinkerbell. I didn’t know he was gay. But he is gay. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since and I can’t help but wonder if that innocent and flirtatious nickname had a negative impact on him. Come to think of it, he signed my yearbook “Tink” so I don’t know! I feel awful now, but honestly I hadn’t a clue! And I can’t just say, “Hey I’m really sorry I did that…” because what if it didn’t matter to him at all? What if it had a positive impact? Oh well.

You see, in Jr. High I hung out at “The Homo Tree.” I didn’t know it was called that until many many years later. But it was sort of a nerdish group of misfits and freaks that couldn’t hang anywhere else I suppose, though we had a nice setup of benches around this huge glorious oak tree. A couple of the other boys from the “Homo Tree” I found out later were gay as well. I didn’t know gay from anything else at the time. I was pretty out of the loop, as it were. But I adored them all. We were a bit of a tight-knit group back then. I wonder about a couple of those guys and gals from back in the day. I guess that’s mega-normal. Curiosity and all. Those people touched my life though. And they witnessed the many beatings I took throughout 7th grade as it usually happened pretty dang close to the “Homo Tree.”

Watching “My So-Called Life” brought back a lot of memories. A lot of fashion memories, too! Ha-ha! I love it! It’s so good. It’s so well written that there were moments when I forgot these kids were actors! I cared about them. I wanted Jordan and Angela to find a way to work it out because damn, we never seem to get THE one we want in high school (I never did). And the Jordan character was so many guys I dated back then. *shakeshead* So many memories! And I was rooting for Bryan, but he knew he made the bed he now had to lay in. So good! I can’t even…You should just watch it! It’s on Netflix instant watch and probably everywhere else you can watch things.

I wasn’t prepared for how it would make me feel or the memories that would come flooding back. So many friends that seemed so close and dear and important that I haven’t seen or heard from since 9th grade. It’s life! I think the course my life took after 9th grade, well, it’s no wonder I had forgotten all of these things. But in a way I am glad to have those memories back now. And I am so grateful for the two friends I still have from back then. I just wish I could find my friend Summer. I do hope that she’s okay.

Here’s to hoping you have a wonderful weekend, no matter what you are or aren’t doing. Just relish in the existence of it. *Hugs* I love you all! <3

Today’s TMI Tuesday is about communication in relationships. Nothing not safe for work or triggering that I can think of (but do let me know if you find something to be of issue). Please share your thoughts and experiences in comments; as always this is where the action happen! Ha-ha! I love TMI Tuesday, don’t you?

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I have talked quite a bit here about my own issues within my marriage. Hey, 13 years with someone, you’re bound to have some stuff come up, ya know? So I met up with an old friend and had a nice long heart to heart last Thursday. It was both a relief and a bit scary. I mean, it was nice to get some things off of my chest, but a bit scary when someone you’ve known for so long will say something in a way you totally get yet weren’t expecting. Ha! We’ve been friends over twenty years, we get each other, go figure! I value our friendship even more now as adults than I ever could have when we were a couple of ridiculous teens.

My husband, B, had been trying to get me to go fishing with him pretty much from the get-go. How he described it however was basically the reason I didn’t want to go. It sounded like torture! But then she explained why I HAD to go (she knows she can’t give me an option). Then she told me about a book that she says would have saved her marriage had she read it sooner. Saturday morning as I was opening the cafe, FedEx arrived with that very book! She’d sent it to me because she knew how much it would help.

So I spent most of Saturday at the cafe reading that book. With many interruption I read the whole thing in 3 hours. Not a long one, for sure. But man did it make a ton of fucking sense! It’s not that B and I were fighting or not getting along, but we aren’t exactly communicating or enjoying each others’ company like we used to and this has bothered me for some time now (as you may know already if you’re a regular reader of this here blog-a-ma-thing).

I’ll admit right now that at first I thought, “A book to help my marriage?! Oh brother, give me a break!” And despite the cheesy title and all, it has already helped! And B has promised to read it, too (I presented it as an option with no pressure). We even had a pretty deep discussion of our own that afternoon. It was interesting. I guess we’d been sort of not discussing things for so long that I never mentioned how much my views had changed about things. It seems a lot of my actions early on in our relationship still affect him deeply. So it was nice to talk it all out.

Ah, yes! The book! The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman (756 5-star reviews on amazon? Wow!). To break it down, there are 5 main languages that people speak when expressing love. Rarely do two people in a couple speak the same love language and so the book explains them and offers ways in which to figure it out and fulfill the needs of both partners in the relationship. I know this sounds pretty basic, but I can assure you that while reading it was describing my relationship, my friends’ and more! And what I love most about it is that you can put things into action immediately! You don’t even need the other half of your couple to read it if they don’t want to. It’s that good! ha-ha!

So, we will see how or if anything changes after B reads the book. I already see how it’s helped. So yay! And hopefully we will go back to having more of these deeper conversations because they really help. Just talking things out in a calm way, ya know? It’s nice! And so I already wanna loan my copy to two different couples I know! Ha-ha! But I won’t push it on anyone, I hate that!

What communication issues do you or have you had in your relationships? What have you done to try to help?

(To the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Boys Boys Boys”)

This TMI Tuesday post is all about Sex Toys! If this doesn’t interest you, you’d rather not know about my sex life or toy preference, or you’re at work and don’t wanna get in trouble, do come back tomorrow for your regularly scheduled random fatty talk right here on my blog-a-ma-thing. Thanks!

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On my recent visit to Good Vibrations for that fabulously fun Burlesque class a couple of weeks ago (oh how time flies!) I picked up a toy I’d been looking at online.  I loved the color and the feel of the outside of it and the length seemed fab, too! But then, like so many toys, it left me unimpressed and generally dissatisfied. I know, for $22 what do I expect?! Well, I expected something! Perhaps I had high expectations, but that $22 is hard won for me (more than a week’s worth of work/tips) and so I always have high hopes when spending my dough.

See? It’s perty!

The last toy I purchase was the Butterfly Kiss and while I have enjoyed it a couple of times, it’s length is problematic (the butterfly doesn’t actually do anything for my clit as it either doesn’t reach or is so weak as to be meaningless). I do appreciate the design of it though. And again, the price was great at $18.

Mine’s the pink one.

So compact yet powerful!

Oh babes! (You’re all hawt-ass babes in my eyes, just so ya know!) I went out dancin’ on Friday night with my friends Jessica, Jeanette and Nicole (and Amy & her gals *waves* Hi ladies!!!)…whew! I’m still recovering! Ha-ha! There was a time, a long-long time ago chi’ren, when this fattycake used to go out dancin’ every Friday and Saturday with my girl Summer (I miss you girl, where you at?) and we would dance all night for nobody but us! This last Friday? Totally reminded me of back then. *sigh* It’s been soooooooo long! And I had SO much fun!

Full Figured Entertainment hosts a BBW night on the 3rd Friday of the month at Club Anton in Oakland, CA (you save $2.50 by pre-paying on their site just in case you plan on coming to the next one). I wasn’t sure what to expect, to be honest, but as co-designated drunk, I was ready to make it a good time one way or the other. Luckily I didn’t need to do that at all. Oh no, the fun was there just waitin’ for us! When we arrived the place was near empty, but soon that all changed!

As DJ Pam “The Funktress” was spinnin’ everything from today’s hottest hip hop hits to some fantastic old school numbers for me (“Humpty Dance” is my jam!), she even went all out, even scratchin’ with, well, her boob! It was fabulous, you don’t even know!!! It took me a bit (and a couple of cape cods) to get my courage up for some fatty booty shakin’ but I will tell you what, once I started I didn’t wanna stop! Ha-ha!

The gals and I had a blast! It was so much fun! I barely felt time pass as we were out there dancing and dancing and popping out into the cold Oakland evening air to refresh from time to time. I love that feeling! When you’re all hot and sweaty from dancing and you step outside into the coolest breeze and the air is nearly electric? Well, it felt so good. I felt so alive! For once I didn’t feel like an old fussy lady sitting at home, ya know?

At one point they stopped the music to pull the raffle winner (they raffle a big bottle of booze each night) and then proceeded to introduce and instruct us on “The Cupid Shuffle” which I’d never heard of nor done. It took me a full rotation, but I got the hang of it enough to throw my own flavor into the moves. FUN! I was feeling so good, I mean, I was full-on blissed-out, y’all! OMZ!

Photography by C’Davisionaire Photography

You can see Nicole and I there doin’ the Cupid Shuffle, I think I was watching my feet or the people in front of me, still trying to get my counts down. Ha-ha! I could have done that shuffle the rest of the night! So fun! And the music was fantastic! I had a hard time coming out of my shell at first because I didn’t know most of the music (this is a rare thing), but thanks to Nicole’s “peer pressure” (so not the bad kind, no worries) I soon found myself and the rest of the bunch dancing the night away!

I got home about 3:30 AM and ate a couple of tacos I’d grabbed  on my way back. And then I just crashed a crash like I’d never crashed before. Whew! The next morning? Well, I was a wreck and a mess and a cryin’ shame! But it was so very worth it! I need to do this stuff more often, I’ve decided (and it’s been insisted by my friend across the street). Ha! And yet another fantastic fat event I’ve attended has changed my life for the positive. I cannot emphasize this enough, get out to these events! Support your local fat groups or start your own! It’s so worth it!