Picture it: It was 2019 and I was finally in a job I liked and felt as though I was starting to finally build and live the life I’d always wanted. For my birthday that year I decided to start crossing things off my bucket list. First among them was a seahorse preserve in Hawaii, on the Big Island. I did a lot on that trip and learned so much about myself and the native people of Hawaii. It is because of that trip, and my love and respect for that island and its people, that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to return. Just 6 weeks later I was flying off to Seattle for a weekend, to visit a friend, and to just enjoy Seattle in general. I sat in cafes and ate in cute bistros, relishing in new and interesting settings, visiting old ones too. I felt so liberated and mature and as though I had control of my own destiny. I thoroughly enjoyed my little excursions, and had planned to do so many more, but just two months later everything in the world changed.

The world as we knew it in 2019 is gone. I think we must all take a moment to reflect on that. There is no going back and living in the past will not help any of us survive the harsh future at our doorstep. The world we live in now is similar to the dystopian nightmare scenarios long written about in fiction for the last hundred or so years. To better understand where we are now, we should be looking to the post pandemic era of the 1900’s and the eugenics and anti semitism that followed. We are in exactly the same place it feels like. Having better science and technology did us no favors it seems in fighting another airborne virus that continues to kill millions. Public health crises such as these lay bare all of the inequities of the world. While many middle and upper class folks were simply told to work from home, the rest lost their jobs entirely, or were forced to continue to work with little to no protections or support under the guise of “essential workers”. 

What we are seeing now is the backlash of folks who were never truly impacted by the virus in that they didn’t lose their own health (or refuse to admit it) or loved ones, maintained their careers or livelihoods, and now any visual reminder of what they saw as a huge inconvenience (staying home for a few months) sends them into an apoplectic rage. They scream, “The pandemic’s over!” and, “You don’t need a mask!” and seem all together overly focused on what other people are doing to protect themselves and their loved ones as some sort of affront to their insistence that “It’s over!” Many conscientious maskers have been violently attacked, some permanently injured. We have billionaires making treasonous choices whilst benefiting from our tax breaks and insisting they are for “100% free speech” while simultaneously spreading anti semitism and transphobia globally. There is a very us versus them mentality at play here, and it is entirely intentional. If they realized that we all share the air we breathe and that very air is contaminated with a level 3 airborne pathogen, they would have to consider the life and livelihoods of their fellow humans. They refuse to expand their minds to include the wants or needs of others, even insisting upon harming others to maintain their delusions. 

In the USA, during the pandemic that began in March of 2020, we now have less rights and less of a democracy in general. We have less healthcare, pay more for it, and are more likely to get sick and die attempting to seek that healthcare. Wages, for those who can find jobs, have been stagnant since the 70’s while housing and rents have gone up 160%+ in just the last 20 years. More money is in less hands and people are being pushed into impossible situations in order to survive. The media has chosen a dangerous path since 2015ish and it has only gotten worse since, all bought and paid for by those same few that control so much money and power over all of us. Yet these same people in powerful positions will tell us, the common folk, that “the pandemic is over, vax and relax, go back to living your lives, and everything is a-okay!” We can no longer see these people as leaders; they have led us closer to our own extinction. They are not living in the same reality that we are. Behind closed doors, most are being very careful and protecting themselves and their loved ones very strictly from the virus, while remaining quiet about it yet insisting it isn’t an issue…for the rest of us.

We have seen our climate change drastically before our own eyes these last twenty or so years, there really is no denying it. The messaging always being that we must do more to help our planet, knowing full well that it isn’t possible for individuals to fix what corporations and their profiteering have done and continue to do unabated. Many of the so-called fixes they sold us on were actually worse than what they replaced. We now ingest on average a credit card’s worth of microplastics each week. Knowing this doesn’t help or change anything, but I can’t shake that factoid from my mind. Or how the paper straws that were supposed to be better for the environment, are actually full of PFAS that are fucking us up everyday. We have had the hottest summer in recorded history and it isn’t going to magically improve just because some very loud and wrong guys insist it will. It could very well be the coolest summer we will experience henceforth.

Your local news in the USA is telling you daily how crime is up! (Shocker: Crime is not up, but police keep that message going in partnership with local news outlets so that they keep getting insider info from police. And the police are able to keep raising their budgets because we are primed to believe crime is always up.There’s a John Oliver episode about this, look it up.) Shoplifting is at a pinnacle! Nothing and nowhere is safe! And if that isn’t enough to scare you, there’s always the homeless that they can show you clips of to keep you silent and sedated in fear that it could happen to you if you step out of line. Here in the SF Bay Area, we have always had a large houseless population, it has simply become more visible during the pandemic as so many more have lost their housing and jobs because of it. They did a study recently in San Jose where they interviewed as many people living on the street as they could. You would be surprised by what they found. More than half of our local houseless population have full time jobs, many have more than one job. More than half were over the age of 50 and had housing and a job within the last six months. Many were forced onto the street due to healthcare costs/debts. Shelters are not safe for most and often a haven for abuse/abusers. Whoever you thought the houseless were, it is all of us, because it could be any of us at any time. More than 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with less than $1,000 in savings. Just one setback or financial hit could ruin anyone.

In my last post I mentioned briefly some change in my own feelings about folks dining in restaurants, even as a former restaurant owner myself. This change was brought on by the pandemic and how minimizers/deniers insist on being served in restaurants while millions are still dying from the virus. The ones booking holiday vacations on cruises the moment they opened up that industry again. The ones complaining about their vacations being ruined by the wildfires in Hawaii as natives are begging for help. The way they feel entitled to do as they please no matter the harm and cost to others, it is reprehensible to say the least. It is the way in which these folks have had violent outbursts on planes, attacking service workers all over, and just generally being the absolute worst people to be around ever. These despicable humans have made me see the light! Oh, no, not the that light. It has made me see clearly the class divides and the lies we are sold to keep those in power upholding the status quo. Nothing new, but once you see how everything is connected to white supremecist capitalism, there’s no unseeing it. It is ALL CONNECTED!

A couple of months ago I came across this article (try this link if you hit a paywall) and it very truly blew my mind in the best way. I highly recommend you read it and let it sink in, too. While my own travels have been very intentional and brief, comparatively speaking, it is a marker of class and race issues globally that I had not yet connected on my own. Not that the pandemic wasn’t enough of a reason for me to not want to travel, but now I see how harmful it actually is and always was. 

Travel itself is a status symbol, not that this is new at all. There was a time where it seemed more accessible, but I might chalk that up to my own previous naïveté. I constantly see dating profiles (that I swipe left on, thank you!) that say shit like, “130 countries down, 48 to go!” or whatever and I find it repulsive. I don’t begrudge those who seek out meaningful and life enriching experiences that may lead to travel. It is the passport stamp collectors, and those who insist on going somewhere for the sake of it, while learning nothing from the cultures they use and invade that I take issue with. Them and business travelers. We learned during the first year of the pandemic that most if not all business travel is absolutely unnecessary. It is an incredible waste of resources that are growing more scarce by the second.

I see now that the entitled will insist upon being served on the finest porcelain china as the planet burns before our eyes. There are those who feel more connection to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy elite than they do the average worker striking for fair wages or a houseless person living on the street.  The truth is very much the opposite! None of us will ever be wealthy, but many will find themselves stuck in poverty or worse. How we treat others is the legacy we leave behind as individuals, I think.

I solidly believe that human connection is the purpose of life. Capitalism is designed to break those connections, wear us all down, and keep us too tired, desperate, and distracted to think for ourselves, let alone fight back against our oppressors. It is all by design! They never have the money for universal healthcare and universal basic income, yet that defense budget goes up every fucking year! They can find ways to make tax cuts for their rich pals to get richer, but fuck the rest of us who actually pay our taxes. 

Before you “go out” for some fine dining or entertainment, ask yourself who and how many you are willing to kill in order to keep doing those things. I know it sounds dramatic, but it is the reality of our world right now. If you are sitting maskless in a restaurant of any kind, you are willingly and willfully risking not only your own health and livelihood, but that of every worker in that restaurant. That concert or comedy show you attend is put on by a swath of workers risking it all so that you can “go out”. There is no absolving yourself of this, you are doing it by your own volition. Every time you insist upon this shit, every time you are around other humans without a mask covering your nose and mouth holes, you are compromising lives! 

I have heard every argument and I know none are genuinely intended. No, the people of Hawaii do not need your tourist dollars, they need their clean drinking water back! Fuck the airlines, all of them. There are a lot of ways to do a lot of things safely, but how some insist upon the most harm in the name of the most inane things because they insist on being stuck in a past that has left them behind is unforgivable! It doesn’t have to be this way either, but again, a very small few threw us all under the bus and left us to die. Yes, even you! 

No one is immune to covid, I don’t care how many vaccines and boosters you’ve had. There is no hybrid or herd immunity. Stop swallowing the media’s lies and think critically for once. Wear a fucking mask, yes always when around other humans. If we all did this, we wouldn’t have to do it forever. Those of us who have been careful all along need to get more vocal about it, too! If we all take more safety measures, less people will die, period. Because I don’t know who I am passing on the street, and I would not want to be the cause of their loss of a loved one or loss of their own health or livelihood. Most of us don’t even get paid sick days, so it isn’t a fair play to say, “to each their own”.  We are all connected and breathe the same damn air! These masks will be needed for more fires and the toxins released into our atmosphere. It is inevitable. Our air and water are our most sought after resources, and it is already getting scary. 

I want us all to live long and fulfilling lives. No one is guaranteed health or longevity, but we can do things in our day to day lives that make it more possible. Wear a good mask, an N95 or a KN95 are best for disposables. There are reusable options like the Flo Mask. I like my Gata mask for work, it’s affordable, comfortable, and comes in fun colors. Please don’t cave to peer pressure, your life is literally on the line for this one, ya know? It is that serious. We are still very much in a global pandemic, it is very bad right now actually and only getting worse by the day. Because now we have less protections and even those in power working to make wearing masks illegal (I don’t think they can, it is a medical protection afterall, but they do like to try). You won’t really hear me talk much about vaccines because that is a personal choice and it does not prevent infection or transmission, only death and the most severe outcomes. The vaccines may reduce your chances of getting Long Covid, but even that is no promise. Even outside you should mask because being outside only reduces your risk by around 19% last I heard and that is only if you’re not in a crowded area. Sitting across from someone eating, drinking, and talking or laughing is actually a very high risk activity. I will write another post soon about my own mitigation strategies and products I use if others may find it useful. 

Please protect yourself and each other. We are all we got. 

***

I’m here for realness and sincerity, honesty and vulnerability, I’m here for the good and juicy bits of life that shine for me when I know I’m heading in the right direction.

Rad Fatty Love to ALL,
<3
S

Donate to this blog here: https://www.paypal.me/notblueatall currently donations will be given directly to Black women in need through my network.

My blog’s Facebook page for things I share that aren’t on this blog: http://on.fb.me/1A18fAS 

Or get the same shared content on Twitter: @NotBlueAtAll

And as always, please feel free to drop me a line in comments here or write me an email, I love hearing from readers. (Tell me your troubles, I don’t judge.) notblueatall@notblueatall.com

***

I’m here for realness and sincerity, honesty and vulnerability, I’m here for the good and juicy bits of life that shine for me when I know I’m heading in the right direction.

Rad Fatty Love to ALL,
<3
S

Donate to this blog here: https://www.paypal.me/notblueatall currently donations will be given directly to Black women in need through my network.

My blog’s Facebook page for things I share that aren’t on this blog: http://on.fb.me/1A18fAS 

Or get the same shared content on Twitter: @NotBlueAtAll

And as always, please feel free to drop me a line in comments here or write me an email, I love hearing from readers. (Tell me your troubles, I don’t judge.) notblueatall@notblueatall.com

Where do you go when you don’t have anyone to talk to (for whatever reason) but want to get something off your chest? OH! This fucking blog o’ mine! Ha!

As I calm down a bit while eating this lusciously rich piece of chocolate cake…Ahem!

A big gathering at work in celebration of a number of marriages and baby announcements, about half the office is in the kitchen. Myself and a teammate, who also always wears a mask in the office, are sitting down together at a table chatting quietly, as introverts do. Then half our HR team sits across from us at the same table, none wearing masks.The topic of Covid is brought up, not by me but you’re right to make that assumption, and mention of it being all over the news again, cases are up. I say, “if it’s in the news then it is far worse than we know, they don’t like to talk about covid in the news these days.” Someone mentioned wastewater reports and I think for juuuust a moment they might care about mitigations and such. Nope! Just a talking point! Because the next moment the conversation moves onto hooray for a new booster coming and then they all mostly admit they aren’t up to date, have been traveling all over the dang world, and never mask in the office, and all have kids. I mention school starting during an already huge surge and before I could finish my sentence they’re talking about the upcoming booster again. 

Look, I actually love my job and most of the people I work with. I love my office and my team are some of the nicest and hardest working people I have ever met in my life. But one of our teammates is out right now because they went to Disneyland last week and now have covid. The entire team was testing for covid yesterday! Only 3 people out of 100 in my office consistently wear a mask. Me? I don’t fuck around, so I don’t have to find out. I caught covid one year ago at work, I took my mask off for 2-5 minutes to drink water and caught it from a teammate. I was fully vaccinated and very careful about my exposure and consistently masked. It only takes a few seconds of exposure though. I was fortunate to get Paxlovid pretty quickly and was well supported by my team, too. But I cannot shake the surreal feeling that everyone actually knows how terrible things are and are simply unable to process it all because it really is that bad. So I throw in a joke about, “Don’t worry about it though, the world is on fire right now, too! Ha-ha!” I swear I’m great at parties! Ha! 

We are reliving the 1900’s from the start and we’re doing fuck all about doing better for ourselves or the planet. We have a pandemic, nazis, insane billionaires controlling the media, heading into a likely global economic collapse, but we get a little change up with also being in the find out phase of our climate crisis. It is all fucking connected and it is all fucking repeating and I hate it. Individualism will be the death of our species. White supremacy has guaranteed this. Senators face cameras unblinkingly while spewing lies because they would rather us all suffer and die than admit they fucked up ever. Each bought and paid for by their fave corporation or billionaire bestie. Hundreds of millions are suffering around the globe from Long Covid while the entirety (it seems) of the medical world gaslights those suffering from its debilitating effects. The let it rip strategy will disable hundreds of millions more and we don’t have any systems in place currently to care for them/us. Healthcare globally is falling apart, more so now that most don’t bother to mask in hospitals at all, regardless of the situation. My grandmother would be swearing up a storm at the notion! 

They really tried to fool us with the vax and relax bullshit. They really laid it on thick about the effectiveness and purpose of the vaccines. It was all lies. And I’m not anti vax at all, I have all of my boosters, even though those have all lost their effectiveness completely by now. If you have had covid even once, even mild, even asymptomatic, YOU ARE NOW HIGH RISK FOR EVERYTHING! I wish people would get that message because the next five years are going to be horrifying! No one is testing and those that do are not testing at the right time or not using a method that will garner a more accurate result. The shear force of misinformation campaigns just wash out any remnants left of common sense in our society. Check for your county’s wastewater reports on covid, if they are still reporting (so many stopped recently). Maybe you believe you’ve never had covid so you’re fine and you must be doing something right if you haven’t gotten it this far, right? Well, 60% of cases are still asymptomatic, so unless you have been testing yourself weekly and consistently, you can’t truly know you haven’t had it. That is a tough data point for many to understand, but this virus is a tricky fucker! Also, if you are fat, you’re also high risk not simply because of your size but because of medical weight stigma and biases. We, as fat bodied people, will receive less care and less quality care if we have access to health care at all. I have no doubt in my mind that had my gallbladder crisis happened before the shutdown, I would not have received the care and testing that eventually found my issue. Telehealth/virtual medical appointments should be the norm! 

If you have any questions about covid or long covid or precautions/mitigations you can take, PLEASE ASK ME!!! I am happy to provide info, links, etc. I actually care a lot about people staying alive, though sometimes I question myself on what the point of caring for others is when it feels incredibly fucking one-sided. I suppose I am lucky in the sense that I was always different from “the crowd” and so it is absolutely no biggie for me at all to wear a mask even when I’m the only one wearing one. Standing out is what I do best! I’m a large bodied woman with red hair and often brightly colored outfits, I’m pretty tough to miss! Ha-ha! I do struggle to understand why folks are risking life and limb for comformity’s sake or to not upset others. Fuck that! I am an adult, so I get to decide what I do with and to my own face/body/etc. As things get even more bleak, and I’ve seen some horrific lies passed off as truths by so-called experts who are obviously cashing in on this bullshit campaign (things are about to get reeeeeeal bad. Like, everywhere!), I want to hope that folks will snap back to their previous “We’re in this together” mentality because we need that to survive! I am not interested in prettily painted Hallmark versions of anything. The world is literally on fire. Shut up! Just shut the fuck up and wear a mask, do the right thing! It is not hard! I hate it too but this is reality. 1 way masking is not effective in crowded areas, you can still get infected through your eyes or if your mask doesn’t have the best seal. It is very effective when everyone wears a mask. 

New information and developments in science are coming out everyday, so I do have hope. I am one of hundreds of millions still dealing with Long Covid symptoms over a year after my only so-called mild infection. Right now only 7% with LC ever fully recover at all. Some have been living with it since 2020 with no treatment available. With more people talking about it and pushing back on the gaslighting by the medical world, I know eventually there will be treatments. Who can access those treatments is another discussion entirely. With all the talk of the new boosters, most have forgotten that Biden ended the emergency status for the Fed, so many will be paying out of pocket if insurance won’t cover it or they don’t have insurance. I’ve so far seen prices starting at $110 for one booster. And as a result of the emergency status ending, the booster won’t be here until late September at the earliest, but until today I have consistently heard that it is November. Schools in my area started today! It is pure madness and greed driving everything now. Please reach out to those you haven’t heard from and offer support, the real kind, not just platitudes. No one knows how long any of us have left here. No one ever asks how I’m doing or feeling, not since the acute phase of my infection last year. Most people don’t even know what the symptoms are! There’s about 200 symptoms currently under the LC umbrella, but there’s like a core 8 that are consistently LC. Fatigue and brain fog are not what the average person thinks they are. The fatigue will suck your entire life away from you before you know it! This virus is SARS2, it is a level 3 airborne pathogen, but it is a vascular disease. The acute phase is not the end, it will be in us forever and causes damage in every organ.

There is no such thing as a summer flu. Avoid getting covid at all costs! No concert or large gathering is worth it, I promise you. Stay safe, stay smart! We are all we got!

***

I’m here for realness and sincerity, honesty and vulnerability, I’m here for the good and juicy bits of life that shine for me when I know I’m heading in the right direction.

Rad Fatty Love to ALL,
<3
S

Donate to this blog here: https://www.paypal.me/notblueatall currently donations will be given directly to Black women in need through my network.

My blog’s Facebook page for things I share that aren’t on this blog: http://on.fb.me/1A18fAS 

Or get the same shared content on Twitter: @NotBlueAtAll

Are you on MeWe? I started a fat-feminist group there called, Rad Fatties Unlimited, look for it! I’m also on Space Hey, MySpace, LiveJournal and all the other places: NotBlueAtAll

And as always, please feel free to drop me a line in comments here or write me an email, I love hearing from readers. (Tell me your troubles, I don’t judge.) notblueatall@notblueatall.com

After every reported/published act of violence in the USA there is always a chorus of the shocked and appalled about it happening in broad daylight. As though the time of day such horrific acts occur is somehow unheard of or more abhorrent. Do they honestly believe bad things only happen at night? Rings a bit close to “what was she wearing?” to me. Everyday in the USA we see this shit scrawled across every major news/media outlet, our social media, and just everywhere. 

I cannot feign shock and horror any longer. I knew at the age of 6 that the monsters of the world will find you in broad daylight, no matter what kind of person you are. I witnessed the true horrors of police brutality at that young age in my own neighborhood. I saw with my own eyes how brutally Black women are spoken to and treated in our society. How the police treat the marginalized and the impoverished with a heavy sense of “how dare you make me waste my time on you, you aren’t worth the air you breathe” in their tone and eyes. This was in the 1980’s, so how is everyone still shocked?!

Do we really need to “be there” or “hear the other side” of these stories after literal centuries of this shit?! Why?! Why believe or prioritize some make believe reason or excuse that would somehow make it all make sense? The reason, the excuse, the cause is always white supremacy and capitalism. It is power and greed that requires the othering of those most vulnerable already. Yet so many seek to pin the blame on the victims, almost always. White people in particular will seek out any tiny seemingly negative detail about a person who was murdered by the police in the USA as though someone having any kind of life outside that moment somehow means they deserved it. 

In broad daylight is when life happens. We get up and work and just try to fucking live! I don’t know where the shock of something happening in broad daylight came about, but it is ridiculous to believe anyone is somehow safer because of the sun being out. Every single horror inflicted on me throughout my entire life has been in the daytime. Sure, stuff happened at night too, but it all started during the day (with my abuser). 

When we don’t know what to say, we all have the option of simply not saying anything. I wish more people would choose that option. Instead we spout platitudes and cliches with faux sincerity and it all means absolutely nothing. No one with any measure of power is going to do anything to change this country for the better. There is more incentive for them to maintain the status quo at every level. We are now at the point where people are getting shot simply for existing within the eyeline of some gun nut, and oh boy are there a ton of fucking gun nuts in this country.

Even where I live, in the so called liberal bay area (ha!), there are highway shootings often. Police here regularly brutalize our homeless population with that same exasperation I saw in my childhood. As though their inflated budgets aren’t part of the cause of the disparity we see everyday. People are desperate and hopeless, there is zero support or options for most. If you truly believe that a homeless person is less than or at all different from you, fuck all the way off! You are simply very wrong. We are all so much closer to being in their exact situation than one of opulence and fame. But so many of us would rather look away in disgust and repeat disgusting stereotypes and myths than to actually face and find solutions for these issues.

Violence is how this country was founded. White supremacy is what it was built on. Because those are our fundations, we would have to dismantle all of it from the top down in order to start anew. I see no way any type of reforms would do anything but virtue signaling at this point. Our government has shown us time and again since its inceptin that they don’t give a fuck about the people they govern. They are all in it for themselves and their donors. The violence will never end, there is no accountability to be had or sought. 

We must look out for ourselves and each other. Our government has failed us. With Covid19 especially, they have done more harm than I ever could have imagined possible. The deliberate misinformation and propaganda they have spread to enforce the idea that it is over or gone or just a cold or flu has killed hundreds of thousands, and disabled millions more. They claim it is for the economy but they will have a wake up call soon when the workforce is reduced to impossible levels due to endless refinfections, as our healthcare system is crumbling before our eyes, and more will be pushed into desperation and homelessness. 

It is all connected. It really fucking is! Once you see that it is impossible to unsee it. If you find yourself looking down your nose at anybody, it better be these rich white assholes holding all the wealth and not someone who has nothing. And if looking upon the destitute with repulsion and disgust is your reaction to seeing it, do better. Read up and look at the ways this is all connected. Your repulsion should be with those that force people into destitution, not those suffering as a result of the actions and wealth hoarding of those in power. None of us are better than the other. We are all humans. We all deserve to feel safe. No one should be attacked with violence for simply existing. 

***

I’m here for realness and sincerity, honesty and vulnerability, I’m here for the good and juicy bits of life that shine for me when I know I’m heading in the right direction.

Rad Fatty Love to ALL,
<3
S

Check out the Fat AF podcast on your favorite podcast app for all things fat sex, with me and my BFF, Michaela! (We only recorded a few episodes but they were good!)

Donate to this blog here: https://www.paypal.me/notblueatall currently donations will be given directly to Black women in need through my network.

My blog’s Facebook page for things I share that aren’t on this blog (updated frequently and not just about fat stuff): http://on.fb.me/1A18fAS 

Or get the same shared content on Twitter: @NotBlueAtAll

Are you on MeWe? I started a fat-feminist group there called, Rad Fatties Unlimited, look for it! I’m also on Space Hey, MySpace, LiveJournal and all the other places: NotBlueAtAll

And as always, please feel free to drop me a line in comments here or write me an email, I love hearing from readers. (Tell me your troubles, I don’t judge.) notblueatall@notblueatall.com

Grocery shopping is simply a part of life. No matter what is going on in the world or. your own life, you will eventually need supplies and food. Growing up I didn’t really have grocery shopping modeled for me in a normal way. My father worked at Gemco, which had a grocery department, and would do the majority of our shopping on his paydays before leaving work. When Gemco shut down entirely, my dad worked for a grocery store and then a grocery outlet. This is when I first got a fuller grasp of what grocery shopping actually was. My family was poor and it was the eighties so there were a lot of yellow generic boxes with black lettering. Brand names rarely made it into our cart or home. My parents didn’t take any sort of pride or enjoyment in cooking either, it was all simply necessity. 

Years later when I met my abuser, and after I had dropped out of school, he would force me to go grocery shopping with him and make him steak dinners and such, I was 14 years old (he was 21). He expected and demanded that I act a certain way in public with him. I hated every second. Because public restrooms are gendered, he would never let me use them, lest I try to escape his clutches. This created a lot of stress and tension. He forced me to write bad checks a few times as well, it was humiliating when the grocery store finally caught on. We didn’t have cookbooks in the house and the internet was years off from being in homes, so I mostly relied on McCormick seasoning packets for recipes and preparation instructions in general. 

When I escaped my abuser for good I would do quick grocery runs with my roommate but that didn’t last either. I soon relied almost entirely on lean cuisine’s frozen entrees, Cuervo Gold tequila (bought by friends until I was of age), Taco Bell’s #1 combo meal, occasional mall food, and the kindness of my grandma who would pack me a lunch for work any time she saw me, no matter what time of day or night. It was the late nineties by then and I was working at a music store in a mall and a music industry magazine on weekends promoting new artists. Food at that time was something I didn’t want to think about. I struggled with anorexia since I was 14 and while I didn’t know it then, it was a way for me to feel some semblance of control in my life that carried on into my late twenties. 

When I moved in with B in ’99, I really had to start from scratch and figure things out in the real world so to speak. We figured things out together which was wonderful. We started with lots of frozen things because it was easier to prepare. Looking back I’m really impressed with our early years together, we really were a team. When I would make quick grocery runs on my own I would be anxious but it wasn’t unbearable and I didn’t yet know as much about anxiety and C-PTSD and triggers and stuff. When we went to the store together we would focus on each other and chat and laugh the whole time. On my own I tried to get in and out as quickly as possible. Little things started to happen in those solo trips though, other shoppers would give me death stares and seemed to go out of their way to block my path. Figuring it was just coincidence or folks didn’t see me, I didn’t think much of it. Soon though it all escalated.

I really started to notice an escalation in hate and harassment when I was vegan for five years. This is when I, and my then husband, really learned how to cook. I got real into Alton Brown and Rachel Ray, despite who and what they are today, they really made cooking accessible to me then and I will never forget that. This is also when I first set foot in a Whole Foods. I came home very upset once after going to Whole Foods (WF from now on), a woman had hit my cart with hers and then later trapped me in an aisle with her cart and because of an ill placed pillar I couldn’t get away. She didn’t say anything to me, but it was plain as day that there was pure hate in her eyes. My then husband insisted it was some “psycho” (we used that word so much in the 90’s, how embarrassing) and an isolated incident, nothing to worry about. It was not isolated though. This was the early 00’s and the “Obesity Epidemic” was in the news everywhere, and there I was a size 26/28 just trying to live my life. 

Whole Foods became a saving grace for the ingredients I needed for my recipes, but the harassment got so much worse. People would put things in my cart, take things out of my cart, make remarks about things in my cart, even take my whole damn cart. People would make full eye contact with me and then hit me with their cart quite pointedly. And I do mean hit me and not my cart. They would knock things on the ground beside me and then give me the stink eye as though I had done it. They would say things to me in check out their mothers would be embarrassed to repeat! I’ve been hit with strollers and elbows too. Gawd do haters love to throw a fucking elbow, I swear! Not once did any have remorse or offer an apology. I’m sure most if not all assumed they were doing me a massive favor by harassing and assaulting me. At that point in my life I simply didn’t have the self esteem to fight back or speak up. Any time I would share what happened with others they would insist it was a one time thing and not to worry about it. 

After my divorce, I worked for a few startups and didn’t do much grocery shopping for myself, preferring takeout or restaurant meals with friends. Then I got maybe the worst job of my life at a startup that refused outside services and instead paid me to go to WF every week (sometimes more) and get two full carts of groceries for the small staff in that office. This is when things took a severe turn. To me it was plain as day that someone who had two full shopping carts with the store employees assisting me in fulfilling my list that it wasn’t for me alone, but that doesn’t matter when you’re a hardcore, WF shopping, fat hater. Once in checkout with my two carts this woman in her late 60’s walked over from 3 checkouts away to stand very close next to me and watch as I pulled each item out of the cart and place it on the belt. I mean she was standing maybe 12 inches from me with the sternest glare you’ve ever seen. This was almost $2k in groceries and this lady really and genuinely thought I was some monster who would belly the lot of it in a few hours time. The cashier was hella confused, but I knew her deal. We all do, right? You know why someone is behaving that way around you when you’re fat or otherwise marginalized in a way that doesn’t suit them. And that’s really all it is, it isn’t about me as a person, it’s about my existence and visibility and how dare I or anyone appear so revolting in the presence of WF shoppers?! The nerve! Ha-ha!

When I left that job I swore I would never shop at a WF again. I switched to Trader Joe’s for a time and loved it, but the harassment didn’t subside there, and their parking lots are always a nightmare. There is something about WF and TJ shoppers, and entitlement/elitism that makes me not fit with their vibes I guess. When I moved back to my hometown for a few years I would pass a WF store on my way home everyday. After a particularly exhausting day and train ride from the city, I decided to check out the hot bar at WF and it was glorious! I loved their pot roast, hadn’t had it since my grandma passed away and would never cook such a thing for myself. I ended up hitting up that hot bar at least twice a month for awhile. It was a sort of saving grace when things went south at a job I actually liked. I never got the same harassment at that particular location, but I was usually in and out before anyone could clock me anyway. 

After years of anxiety, panic attacks, harassment and more, in December 2018 I finally made the switch to delivery only grocery shopping. I had just moved into my first apartment on my own and had invited friends over for a holiday cocktail evening with lots of tasty treats and bites all made by me. I went bananas, too! I made a blackberry based vodka cocktail thing with lustre dust in nice glass bottles I gave as gifts that year. At that point I simply didn’t have the time to shop but still needed supplies. My little cocktail party was a hit and my homemade concoctions were enjoyed by all. I have a family owned grocery store about a block away from my apartment, but I rarely go in there unless I absolutely have to. Grocery delivery has been such a gift to myself. I would often get sensory overload in grocery stores even without the harassment and it could trigger a panic attack. I had a bf once joke about it because I said the checkout lanes at Target feel like they have heat lamps above them. I really just couldn’t put myself through all that again (or date anyone so rude, selfish, and callous either).

When the pandemic first hit I felt even better about my grocery delivery life. Even when shortages forced some random substitutions, my delivery placed did well in communicating and crediting and such. Then my gallbladder went bad on me and what I could eat shrank down to like 5 single items of food. Knowing I could rely on that grocery delivery gave me such peace of mind. Like, hello, nobody can bully or harass me if I don’t leave my fucking house! It felt like a win when nothing else in the world could. I realize that some may see this as letting the haters win, but I don’t. Even without direct harassment grocery stores were never an easy thing for me to handle. I am glad that I have other options now. I am also very glad that more people have access to delivery options. It really is a huge amount of bullshit and stress off my shoulders and that was all before I had long covid. Now I cannot imagine trying to do a full shop in person, I would likely pass out.

I did recently enter a grocery store for the first time. I had to buy some supplies for a work happy hour. I messaged one of our EA’s in the office to ask her if anything had changed, what should I expect and explained that I didn’t want to look like a weirdo. She misunderstood my message and brought it up in front of my whole team! I was mortified but only briefly as my team is awesome and once I explained they completely understood my concern. And I survived! I didn’t enjoy it at all, like not in any measurable amount what so ever. I had a few moments of near-panic but talked myself through and I didn’t need much stuff so it was a quick trip. I don’t plan on doing that again if I can help it, but glad to know I can manage it still if needed. I think spending so much time literally alone has become helpful in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. I know right away when I’m being triggered now when before I would never have enough time between recognizing a trigger and a panic attack coming on. I think anything affecting my peace is immediately apparent now whereas years ago I would mask and try to be normal or whatever before actually taking care of my need to feel safe. 

Having said aaaaallllll of this, the next time someone tries to fuck with me in a grocery store is getting an elbow thrown their way before the words get to leave their dry-ass lips! I’m done! Ha!

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I’m here for realness and sincerity, honesty and vulnerability, I’m here for the good and juicy bits of life that shine for me when I know I’m heading in the right direction.

Rad Fatty Love to ALL,
<3
S

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