Warning: Look out for the splurge of posts

Can't see the wood for the trees

I'm going to be posting some old posts along with the new, so please forgive the binge.

If you're sort of waiting for a goodbye note....

....so am I.

I just can't seem to quite get my thoughts together-in a way that has half a chance of making sense to anyone else anyway.

I'm just glad to be out of an atmosphere that has never been conducive to me at all. At first I was just happy and relieved to have lifted a burden off myself, now I'm finding that I'm starting to recover a sense of myself that I was losing. I'm getting caught up in that too.

I'm not sure about what I'm going to do with this blog, it just depends on whether all this leads to my mind clearing enough to sort out past and present posts.

What I planned with this blog was to give my best and if I can find ways to really make good on that, I most definitely will.

I haven't felt this good in ages though, so I'll hopefully see you over the other side of making some sense. Either way, I will address the situation as I feel it's only fair to let those of you who care at all know what's going on.

Thank you for all your support over the years.

It's a New Year! Again

Well Happy New Year. I'm not going to not eschew mentioning that because it may seem a little trite, because I mean it. I'm going to make it a happy one mostly by calming down, seriously I really need to just to ease off the ranting a tad, not least because being calmer seems to be just about the most annoying any fat person can do.

If there's one thing we are supposed to be its quivering timorously like jellies, permanently receptive to fat haters deranged orders.

"Eat healthily and you'll become slim", but HAES is eval because its not lifestyle anorexia and exercise bulimia.

Power corrupts.

They just don't know what they want because they're a bit squiffy and under the influence and hey, it's all such a trip! Society says they get to boss us around and treat us like toys because we are bad and they are good, way hey, how often does that happen?

Do I have any other sort of resolutions? Not specifically, from back when I was gung ho with the old yearly plans, mine usually were pending from the previous year and centred on getting myself together.

That one goes back so long and has been such a constant theme it feels like an aunt or something.

Anyway, let's be hopeful if not 'realistic', may all your wishes for this year come true for-which I'm sure are only righteous. I mean, when people can be turned into disease and some talk about what sustains us as being "addictive", realism it seems is what you make it.

Fat person admits: "Its self inflicted" over here....

Gotcha!

Having one of my periodic mental fluxes where many things are flying around my noggin, but I can't get a handle on them. People who say "Tell us more about your FA journeh the vulnerability the struggle, so that we can identify with you." etc., Don't seem to realise that the mechanics of mental change/adjustment can get old.

The romantics!

Whilst trying to sort out my ludicrous "drafts" folder, I've been trying to put into words my feelings about why we should absolve (no I'm not afraid to use that word) medical professionals and scientists for their part in the stigmatization of fatz . It seems this is unconscionable because it would hurt their feelings- they believe they are saints and pure in heart and deed no matter how they act- they don't deserve it apparently.

Why?

Because they have the insolence to demand a free pass to mis behave in exchange for moving towards a more ethical stance. We are not yet able to be so demanding which makes it our duty to shuffle along and absorb this and not go along with it as usual.

People will listen to us, if we stop being defensive for non fatz, defending yourself against attack, however early, for fatz= feeling hurt about being hurt.

Lets not get any airs and graces, after all it upsets everyone why not stick to our role of cringing arselickers, grateful for anyone who might pay us some mind for a mo? So they claim, whether they follow through or not doesn't matter, we'll just try harder.

To hell with any potential negative consequences of this to us or anyone else we don't have time or energy for that after considering every one else's trauma about confronting what they're capable of.

Indeed, why not also seek to pretend to the old 'absusers logic' "I hurt you, because I care".

If they didn't care, they'd just have left us alone and at least have done us no harm.

Now that I have partially managed to calm down, I'm still struggling to put it into words because after a calm start I just descend into the fury of Hades and this time I say, no, I will endeavour to calming explain why that is bull hockey.

Ho hum.

Anyway, I'm just going keep at it until I at least can say what I think needs to be said, as well as wrestling with this time I can say it, totally self inflicted ish-yoo.

Ahhhh, that last bit felt good because this time, it's true.

Hummm....

I can see an end in sight though I'm not quite there yet. Yesterday I really started to feel like I was at the end of the beginning.

I've been writing posts all the way, I've deleted quite a few which is so unlike me usually I just leave them to fester in hopes I'll be able to sort something cogent. I'm laughing as I write that thinking of all the times I've pressed publish and er, fallen a tad short of that let's say!


I've been flapping and flailing around over at twitter -technical sub literacy is a pain and tidying up a few old posts. I've mostly been focusing on sorting other matters and stepping back-a little from things.

I hope to get back into the swing soon.

Link happy and laying low

Wow, life getting in the way plus access ish-yoos has turned a pause into a positive hiatus. Sorry to leave the last post dangling believe me it doesn't get much better. I've still got a few things I need to take time out to deal with but I did catch a watchable documentary in the early hours about the wonderful Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
 
I first stumbled upon her years ago among the libraries music stock. Between the enlightened world music style policy of the library, the diverse community surrounding it plus some judicious ordering from dedicated musos helped me to finally get hold of things like Big Mama Thornton's version of Leiber and Stoller's take on the blues. It was only then that I realised she wrote and recorded Ball and Chain popularized by Janis Joplin, (her influence on JJ is obvious).

I remember being electrified hearing her sing the definitive "Hound Dog" treatment on the radio it TOTALLY blew the famous Elvis version -which never really scanned lyrically- to smithereens. It irritated me after that I'm not hating, I never tire of Suspicious Minds.

When you hear Big Mama's magnificent growling and warbling meaning falls into place. Incidentally some reckon Elvis saw Sister Rosetta play and that her showmanship was an influence on his.

I remember being able to hear recordings by Edith Piaf who is a national institution in France apart from the usual La Vie En Rose, and Je ne Regrette Rien. I was intrigued after reading a biography of her by Margaret Crosland. I did not enjoy it at all! I was bordering on outraged in fact, yet as I had time before I had to return them and still having vague notions of trying to extend my school French into something approaching fluency (ha!) I figured I'd just learn the songs.

I did my chores with her in the background mais voilà ! I finally heard her, I can't even remember what why I took so against her at first. The things I've ended up liking the most were not always instant.

What I admire about Sister Rosetta like so many apart from her playing and singing is her overall performance. She started as a child hitting the road with her ever so religious mother, leaving her father behind in rural *Arkansas, they landed at a church in Chicago, her precocity and talent served to attract people.

She was the first female electric guitar player I saw who could really related to the instrument with their whole being, as an extension and expression of themselves. With most other female players I tend feel they are playing an instrument whereas Sister Rosetta had total command she dominated it unselfconsciously in a way we tend to take for granted in men.

I relate to the sense of her being both a pious and a libertine she was rebellious in the common sense way, she liked to find ways to do what she wanted even if it wasn't the done thing. She is an example of the way the highs of the sacred and the piety in the sexual coalesce in the same place, if you get deep enough.

Her switching from gospel to secular and back again outraged some of her church fans. She refused or was unable to let go of either and managed to win people round with the sheer force of her talent. People shocked by her recording the gospel ballard "Rock Me" substituting God for a mere mortal, using the same approach as she would the original it becomes thrillingly direct.

She was naughty but nice a lively indomitable character pansexual in her tastes the kind who got into scrapes and schemes which made her loving friends shake their heads, there goes Rosetta.

Apropos that aritistopia link for BMT, I've just stumbled on Big Maybelle, check out her (earlier) version of a rock and roll standard plus this.

I'll see you over the hump.

*Opps!

Goobye 2010: Hello 2011!

Ahh! On the cusp of another year, goodbye 2010 it's been interesting in FA terms (I'm of course talking about the shift in response). Living400 has written a cool list of things she'd love to see the back of /would like to happen.

I won't touch that, but leaving you with something over the new year festivities, yes I know its by the whatever calendar, but I can't rightly be bothered right now to che.... Gregorian!

Suffice to say I acknowledge other calendars that I can't call to mind right now as equally valid in their own way yakka yah. I'm so full of charm today!

Anyhowzzahs, I was getting on to a list of more FA related stuff I'd happily see the back of and frankly over here there's still half a day, don't stand on ceremony waiting for tomorrow on any of these.

No more please, no really I insist ;

* People who claim to be in fat acceptance yet do not grasp one (FA) point of view that they already fervently disagree with.

In fact, people with purportedly polar opposite stances conservative/progressive no more about and can accurately surmise-if they had to- the other stance better than most people in FA can do the same for other people in FA that they claim to disagree with.

I understand that when you stop dieting or hating yourself, you think most work is done, we all do at first. You'll get over that, if you allow it.

Example- insisting that being absolutely against weight loss dieting/calorie restriction is 'extremism' designed to hurt the fee fee's of 'dieters' rather than a rational well thought out point of view.

When you have been told "no" take that as a "not so", not as "I'm a fat 'extremist' who talks bull and is without compassion or understanding for dieters"-and you wonder why people aren't 'nice' about telling to suck it!

If you want those under the influence of fat phobia to make the leap to understand you in the face of feelings of disgust and loathing towards you. Make that leap with your fellow FAers, umkay?

* The inability for fat people's views on anything to count unless they've been backed up by the only truth confirmers allowed on planet earth, scientists/researchers or unless it has happened to the real people i.e. people who are not fat.

Fat people are as human as any others, if something is happening more with or to us or just about only with us, that does not make it a sign of our innate degeneracy more than our innate humanity. It is happening to real humans and doesn't require the validation of anyone else. If we are not fully human, no-one is either.

* The blatant lack of self value and respect for our own fat bodies.

Weight loss surgery is wrong, full stop, no exceptions, not get out clauses, none. There is never a point when it is right or justifiable or good in any way shape or form ever.

N.B WLS is not a fat person, it is not fat people. So criticising it does not criticise those who've had it or are thinking of having it or will have it done. Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do, heroin users needing to withdraw will tell you methadone is a steaming pile, often they feel its worse than heroin, but needs must and authorities have made sure there's little alternative there either.

Maybe because this assessment is formed from the male psyche and also from those so stigmatized and criminalized that there is no need for this fatuous Pollyannaish mentality women tend to cling to-presumably as compensation-that whatever we do must make us good or its ripping our hearts out.You are always more than what you do, more than what happens to you.

Conflating your very self with an operation to mutilate your very self. Is a sign of other things which won't be resolved by body shielding things either designed to hurt fat people or with an abject disregard for any level of our discomfort or pain.

I caused myself harm by trying to restrict and reduce my food intake over many years. When I say weight loss diet culture often makes me feel ashamed to be human, I'm not casting any aspersions on myself whatsoever, because I know I am not a weight loss diet. I criticise nothing but the idea of calorie restriction which leads to this kind of thing amongst numerous others. That is not a criticism of anyone who took or is taking these drugs.

WLS is wrong because it attacks bodies, it attacks human beings, it does violence to them purely for the purpose of undermining their health. Which is the logic underpinning an unprovoked attack on anyone. It would be just as wrong if it was done to thin bodies, the fact that it's done to fat bodies makes it an equal abomination. The devaluation of fat bodies doesn't affect that one iota. The end. And before you shout 'extreme' scour every version of that opinion until you completely understand what I'm saying.

Then see if you disagree.

Any group that cannot reject such vileness wholeheartedly, cannot claim to want equality because they cannot ask for what they don't believe in themselves. If you advocate for female genital mutilation, you are not pro the equality of females, you just don't agree with it, full stop.

That is not going to change because you wish to reconcile two incompatibles, nobody is owed that. Either accept what you believe or change your beliefs to what you can accept because something has to give one way or t'other. That's how many of us change our minds not always by being persuaded directly by another view, but by what we have to accept in order to keep believing.

If you cannot stand for something, you'll go for anything, sorry, but believing in things, excludes that which you do not believe in or that which is incompatible with those beliefs. If you try to include everything you exclude by another means, so make up your mind you cannot avoid it. I respect your intelligence too much to kid you on that one.

* Taking the start of opinion from the wholly illegitimate as if it is legitimate, because of its source.

The nature of the fat hating obesity crisis is bogus and illegitimate-if anyone is genuinely worried/ terrified of fatness being a health problem, they would never recommend what doesn't work. In the same way that if your house is on fire, I'm not going to tell you to pour petrol on it, because its liquid and there's not a drop of water to be had and "we've got to do something!"

What you do is the best thing you can, not follow busted logic-petrol is liquid-regardless of the actual results. If the best you can do is to get the hell out of there, that is something enough until you can actually do better.

In fact, they'd be telling fat people to think very carefully if at all before they wasted their time. Why?

Because if you are against something you see as a threat to health, your number one priority is to not make things worse and to exclude what doesn't work, it gets in the way especially if it is widely believed to work. What you want is something effective, if you aren't interested in that, you aren't anti anything except making cash money. That's why anti cancer charities don't recommend people who claim to cure it with snake oil.

In fact they would be ferocious in exposing that because the principle of do no harm is as important as seek remedy. Compare that to so called 'anti obesity' who first of all shout fire in a crowded place, with exits marked calorie restriction even though that has made numerous people fat(ter) and has not headed off the crisis, even though the idea predates it by a few years at least.

Taking the irrational as 'one side', merely because its authority mandated and fat acceptance as the end point (and suspect because it comes from lay people), claiming bovinely that the truth is in the middle is weapons grade bilge. A bit like claiming that the KKK is the start of opinion because it too has been validated by the authorities and the NAACP as the other and therefore 'extreme' in comparison with it.

Objectivity is about judging opinion on its merits, without fear or favour, playing the ball not the man as they say. If it is nonsense it is nonsense that remains unaltered by rank either way.

Claiming the NAACP is super radical not due to its content but by juxtaposing it with racism, not matter how many luminaries put on the pointy hood, is bull. FA should be 'extreme' compared to hysterical fat phobia as any rational impulse should be compared with an irrational one. Not having a mental breakdown, should seem 'radical' compared with having one, because of the nature of the two, not because the former is deliberately trying to upset the former, or vice versa.

Now disagree if you wish, I'd welcome it, I wouldn't claim to know everything, but disagree with the actual point. I have to refer some of those who (genuinely) aren't grasping that to a lyric from a song.

"With never the need to fight or to question a single thing".

If you rigidly think that whatever authority says must have some intrinsic virtue merely because it's you know *hushed reverence* from authority, regardless of what it says. If you think the mainstream view must be moderate, purely because it is the mainstream because it must, then I'm looking at yoo-hoo.

Those who have not been or kept themselves so sheltered should not have to apologise for being more able to contemplate a wider range of possibility on that score. Others share your feelings of embarrassment and betrayal, its just that it happened earlier or deeper before, taking it out on them is not the way to go.

I get that people think that FA has to have a huge membership- I don't agree with that assessment at all. An indicator is the MC thing, that caught everyone in FA by surprise which confirms my view that not all resistence happens or is contained in FA and its a tad vainglourious to assume it is or must be.

Or that it must appeal to Mr and Ms Middle brow of Middlesbourough, but I wouldn't be quite so condescending as all that. Many of those people are far more 'radical' and clued in than you. Yeah, not everyone's a joiner.

Some people don't join precisely because they see more clearly than they should and would rather keep the extent of that to themselves. You'd probably think they were crazy radicals anyhow.

So that's enough for now, I'm looking forward to an automatic recognition by fat people that we are as human as anyone and that means what happens to us, in us, defines the truth of being human as much as any other. If we do not, no-one else does end of story.

To all teh fatz of all races creeds, beliefs, genders, whatevers there are no group of people on earth finer or better, nor worse than you.

Got that?

I'm looking forward to it being unthinkable to think anything else.

Let's go for the instant gratification we are infamous for and make that right now.

Happy New Year

Better

I seem to have hit a slight gap in posting. Over the years I've not been a regular poster, but more lately I've hit a seam of pressing 'publish' as opposed to 'draft'. So although this is not out of character from a reading end, it is from this one, it's a little different from the usual gaps.

I'm going through another breath of mental transition. I definitely need to push myself on overall (in my life) and that is what is causing this particular gap. It feels strange because it's unexpected, its kind of welcome though, because I've been feeling good more recently. But good isn't always enough is it? I'll have to wait and see where it will lead and how I'll feel during the exhale phase of this little step-this is like the pause you do in deep breathing after you've taken a deep breath in.

Hopefully it will take me upwards, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't, I'll just try something else, because; it's got to be done.

I'm not sure how long this phase will last, in the meantime I'll try and finish some stuff that has been hanging around, if I can and maybe some newer ones too.

I know I will get better because that's just the way its got to be, I'll keep on until I get to my better.

I hope you are getting (or maintaining) your better too!

Fabric Wars

The NiqaBitch look succinctly undercuts the emotiveness surrounding the French attempt to ban the Niqab and seems to allude to a lesser heard and more understated reaction to the veil.

Rather than necessarily being a juxtaposition its as much two halves of a different suit worn together. Similar themes play out around it as in the way women dress in other cultures, including the West only certain things may seem more obvious as an outsider looking in, because we ignore them in our own dress codes. Religion adds another layer to that, it does not create it.

It's right that Muslim women especially should be outraged at the ill conceived French ban on the Niqab or face veil covering the whole face and hair, leaving a slit for the eyes, it smacks of displaced fear expressing the politics of gesture on an easy target.

I didn't quite realise the different styles of Muslim dress were called the words I'd heard but couldn't link together.

Among the more well known terms are the burqa the (closed) cloak like garment covering the whole of the body. The chador which is an open cloak that goes over the clothes. And hijab or dress code-referring to the wearing of any of these or modest dress in general for example.

The idea of the government telling people what to wear is as tiresome and invasive as telling us what to eat. Women in the West and outside who question the hijab often fail to see it in the same light as the questioning of the kind of clothes we wear. Forgetting it can be fraught territory for us all, for similar reasons.

We are rightly wary of questioning the motives of certain forms of attire so that courtesy must be extended to all, or none.

I sometimes think we could do with learning to examine what we wear outside the redundant moralising both traditional and feminist. It seems odd when especially feminists go about hanging out of their clothes saying "it makes me feel pretty or comfortable", fine, care to examine why?

Not really and I don't blame them because in the place of curiosity is fear of judgement and a sense of threat. I'm guessing French Muslim women who wish to have the option of becoming hijabi are feeling that intensely right now. And it reminds that controlling what people wear is about trying to control how they feel inside and wish to express on the outside. Affecting the latter is an attempt to shape the former.

Whatever people feel are the flaws in the Les NiqaBitch's approach, they've certainly made their point with an admirable economy cooling the heat surrounding the subject as they sashay cheekily past.

* If you want to hear their own words you can follow the link and click on 'NiqaBitch' on the upper right hand side, for a translation of their own thoughts which on this which is worth a glance.

I've read a book....

.....And I feel about as sheepish as New Zealand, seriously, it's one of those "How to write for twits" type books.

As I was reading through it and its list of no, no's I was going, oh no, I do that, and that and that until I wanted to hide from myself.

Cripes.

Some flouting of the conventions of good writing has been deliberate some sheer molten incompetence. At times I thought I was being funny and then there was "I'm just having a go!" and "It's the message". It has to stop. I have to make more of an effort. I don't claim to be a writer, hell no, I just write stuff down.

As I insist on doing that, I might as well make an effort to do it as well as I can. You get into noticeable patterns and certain tics surface that are major league irritants, in my case deranged syntax.

Most of it is emotional and mental as much as technical. If one is a problem, it derails fluency.

Since the start of FA, I have felt off centre, off balance and off key, virtually all the time. Part of the excitement of FA is that it is quite an unspoken and unformed perspective. Slight and yet a nexus of where so many societal and cultural fault lines lie, it at times makes me feel like I'm trying to watch five TVs at once.

In nature when the surface has to give way the power is lies in what has been contained, underneath. The fear of fatness is barely about hating fat bodies, if at all that is a surface association. Think of how you used to hate seeing pictures of yourself, how unbearable it could be. Then at some point you realise you are just looking at yourself. Seeing no longer through hate, changes the way you see.

That change is mental, your photo's haven't changed, your mind has. If fat bodies were intrinsically hateable, that change would not be possible. We see and it is converted into a whole picture by our brains. Hate was a distortion and without it our vision returns to the original truth of how we would have seen ourselves, had we not learned this lie.

We are all upset about the potential for upheaval for different reasons and that makes for surprising conclusions from all sides. I can tell that the need to hide one's true feelings and motives makes it hard for anyone to say what they feel directly, even when they can write well.

It's hard to think clearly or at times to think at all.

There's another one, I start thinking I'm talking about one thing, then it turns into a psychological/philosophical audit.

And is it possible to write because more?

I mean really is the universe waiting for me to explain it? If I know so much, why am I not a multi millionairess? Or at least, world dominatrix?

Actually, I'd never fancy the latter. What for? Everyone bends to your will, it would be like everyone was a version of you, never would there be a surprise, how tedious would that be? It's the surprise of others both good and bad that is part of the joy of life, even when it hurts before it's nice.

I've picked up some bad habits since I started blogging, the feeling of having to tip toe around the sensibilities of others is the biggest one-the main reason I'm not on any fat feeds. Trying to stay in contact when the disconnect is difficult to breach, I never used to consider this at all. There have been times when logically I've worked out our views are incompatible, but emotionally, I've felt the need to try and maintain some kind of communication. I speak not in regret but in reaching one's limits. It is better to have tried, if you can.

The wariness of other people's resistance has been a bad influence on liberating some inner flummery that should not have seen the light of day. That's alright, I think if you blog you've got to be prepared to make an arse of yourself (I'm not going to say it, you can think it though).

Fat people in fiction

Spoonforkfuls lead me to this.

I really wish fat people would stop this ingratiating fattie fat hating tripe, fat haters don't care if you hate yourself and those with intelligence enough to resist crude fat hating nonsense don't need it from you,either. It's lowers the tone. Have a bit of self respect and if you go down in flames, go down with a bit of resistance.

And could this opening line be much more laughable;

Nobody’s writing novels about fat people confronting their weight. And that’s a problem.

I'd prefer to read a novel about a fat brown nosing idiot who finally wakes up to him/herself. And ends with telling the whole world as our American chums would say, to go suck it.
Confronting it how?

Hello my fatness I'm confronting you, I'm making a citizen's arrest. You're eval, I'm calling the law.

Ye Gads, I can't wait.

I'd prefer to read a novel describing the years of struggle to shape shift and how that can create a double consciousness, where you come to see yourself purely through the eyes of others. And then one day, something cause that to switch off and you suddenly see yourself as you really are.

That might be one for the fantasy genre.

One about a fat guy growing up and how fatness interweaves with men's ideas about the hierarchy of the alpha male and anxieties about their attractiveness to women and how he goes from dissociation with his body, to celebrating it, embodying it. Triumphing and even making a link with that and women being expected to account for their bodies and how that affects his consciousness as male human. I'd like to lead it to him becoming more radical and questioning in general by his experience and overcoming some of his more major insecurities. They'd be a great market for this.

Then there's one about a young fatshionista and how s/he's deeply into fashion and learns to shape that to see him/herself as an subject of desire and great style and verve, how s/he discovers a fat aesthetic of their own etc.,

Cross cultural fat experience. Fat and poc, how that intersects with an inbuilt double consciousness with the addition of the differences between own communities views on fat and the general populace. And why fat black women seem more confident about themselves as fat women and why.

Fat and gay, the story of a shy young man growing up realizing he's gay and study the gay community from afar and how he works out his place in a culture that has certain aesthetics.

About a bear, how a young cub comes to terms with his sexuality and how his fatness relates to it. How that plays out in the gay community in general and the bear sub-culture in particular.

A Lesbian girl and her struggles with feeling the outside doesn't reflect the inside, she'd love to be a gamine or a garconne and how she fights her body and/or sexuality and comes to a rapprochement with both through being fat accepting or through coming out. Does she channel her favoured personas and make it something else because it's through fat-never seen a fat gamine garconne by hey, why not? Or does it change because she decides on something else?

Lesbian woman tired of being a draw for (fat hating) users decides to junk fat hating for new start and launches herself on the world etc.,

A fat older woman or man having to start again and for this to lead in the letting go of old baggage to a fat acceptance route, unexpectedly. And how that change affects family and/or friends who are unsure and have 'health concerns'. And use that to manipulate family politics.

I love tec novels, maybe a crime that comes about because of the lengths people go to because of internalized fat shame, maybe some dodgy lipo clinic targets fat people and things go awry etc., (I don't want to give fat phobes any ideas to be frank).

Fatties of all creeds who just never get on the fat hating trip at all and why. How that affects them and what if any difference it makes to their lives compared to those who internalize fat phobia.

FA's, people of all sexualities and weights coming to terms with the realization that they have a powerful inner attraction to fatties and how they come to accept it, or not. The latter could be a story about a stone cold FA who has thin SO's and fat women on the side. That one could be a thriller!

Children's books featuring fat children who are loved, respected, supported and valued(that should give some parents something to think about)Story of a fat child who loses a parent through death or separation and gains weight and how that affects things. Or is fat before and how this can be used in a custody battle. These could be books for adults, the children's one's could be fro their point of view.

Those are just some that have come to me there are many more but the point is there's plenty to write about. The imagination flows when fat hating weight loss nonsense is not the focus.

I could think of so many more and I'm sure some of those must be out there already. More about fat people who refuse to hate themselves give us all a break from bores who endlessly pander to fat hating tripe. We are talking fiction after all!

Liberated hair

Surprising and instructive article by Julie Bindel writing on women's hair, facial especially but also including, underarm and leg hair.

My first reaction was to feel quite queasy about it, especially thinking about facial hair. I have to say though, I forget at times that I do not shave my legs nor bother much beyond ripping out some tufts from my underarm.

I also was forced to consider my visceral reaction in view of the whole fat debacle. I realise that this is how some people might feel about contemplating the acceptance of fat. Like puking up. And it makes you wonder, where does this come from?

I've seen a lot of black women with facial other hair and there doesn't seem to be the same feeling as there is amongst certainly white women. Shaving legs is not as much of a habit, in fact it seems to be a recent thing to know of black women who shave at all, although I know that's probably my recollection.

I remember once seeing a woman absolutely gorgeous fully made up etc., who had her blouse open to reveal hair as dense as the densest you would find on any head. Even I have never seen such on any man.

She seemed fully at ease with herself and no one else remarked on it, except later on me-shame-so I know others noticed too including a black guy who was working the same shift as I. He shrugged his shoulders and said so what, she's OK with it?

Double shame!

So yeah, I'm all for hairy women's lib. I remember the documentary when a woman with a full beard appeared throughout, after a while, I just got used to it and I'm sure that affected the way I see facial hair on women.

So the fact that I keep reverting to erghh is interesting. It means there is some underlying idea that I have, possibly as mentioned in the comments that women shouldn't have hair, or maybe it's non-black women?

Maybe it's because they seem to depilitate more overall that the eye somehow gets used to that and it that affects how you view other women, not erasing, but reminding of hairlessness? It maybe goes back to a theme that I wonder about from time to time, is the energy put into appearing separate and distinct between white men and women, somehow greater than that of some other races? Or not at all? If so, does it have some kind of underlying ideology. I'm talking more about cultural ideology?

I actually tend to forget because my hair is relatively fine on my legs, I have never shaved them though and my pits, well, their out of sight, though I've never felt self conscious about them either, I had fat for that.

And speaking of fat, the parallels are obvious, letting your hair grow is mentioned in a feminist context, by a self declared 'proud lesbian feminist' who also says that she plucks her facial hair and carries tweezers about for the purpose.

In spite of all this, there is still the defensiveness when matters of beauty are discussed preceded by feminist. It seems merely suggesting thinking about something translates in some people's heads as orders.

There's a lot of that in FA, if you speak about dieting and why you or others have done it that is often counted as telling people what to do.

It's funny how all the usual things that get brought up in the context of fatness get brought up here, what wo/men find attractive, what does and doesn't turn me on-why anyone thinks others care, I wish I knew, femininity and what counts as femininity, whether feminists can be (allowed to be) feminine by the sister's, what about the menz and competition about who 'suffers' more.

It's well worth reading on it's own merits and to compare the arguments in a fresher less fraught atmosphere, without the usual hate and yet reflecting different feelings.

Reading about it here it is clear that feminism has a lot of baggage for some even when merely considering how we live.

I don't believe in stupid

This post started off as an aside that just went on and on, which is why I often struggle to finish any post I start. So I decided to finish it here. I don't believe in the idea that people are intrinsically stupid. That they have a normally functioning brain, but it just doesn't function because of an intrinsic dysfunction that would make it a cause and not simply some kind of decision.

I think that kind of sums it up! I believe we can definitely become stupid, operate below our natural intelligence in certain areas and remain that way, if the conditions that produce that stupidity remain. But that our brain is functional and somehow dysfunctional, no. So 'stupidity' is adjustable, or its not that, its some kind of dysfunction or just the level you're at. And how can you be blamed for that?

At times what has been called stupidity, has seemed to be about an effect of trauma or emotional blocks. Bad programming, such as accusations or assertions that undermine your intelligence, from those you respect-which then carries the validating effects of your faith in them.  

Even those born with parts of their brain missing,  can function as well as anyone or better. I don't really see why you should be stupid in the way we construct it without a reason and that can be as much emotional as much as anything else.

Some prefer the belief that certain races and genders are less intelligent than those who create  IQ tests they fancy have no cultural or self favouring biases.

If they really had such extra intelligence they'd realise how credulous that was. 

Thrashing about

Whenever I look through this blog I'm constantly dogged by the sentiment, why do you bother? It's not about popularity and readers etc., It's that it's failures are so glaringly, sometimes painfully obvious that I think, surely not?

The temption is to start again, but that would only be a brief respite before more of the same.

See, it's like that last sentence, what the hell am I talking about? I don't think like this, not in my head; surely? And haven't I just added yet another superfluous comma. That started a few months ago and is so far sticking, continuing, whatev's.

Sometimes the only reason I continue is because it's sometimes feels so bad, I start to feel belligerent about it. Why am I owed a better blog if I can't manage it right now? Why do I expect to be able to say what I want to say, not miss my mark and so on ? I've just written something that just about makes sense, in fact it felt pretty good for me, then I realised, that it wasn't about what it was supposed to be about and hey, what was it about exactly?

It's not that I don't know what it's about, I just don't know how I got to the good sense I was making from my starting point, ah yes I remember now. It was about the beginning illustrating a general theme.

That realisation, which occurred whilst I was try to edit this, has meant I can delete the rest of it, and try and think of a title for my other mini opus.

Courage mon braves, I may get there yet.

Hello 2010

Oh dear, I've neglected to write my first post of 2010, how remiss of me. I've not been struggling with things to say, on the contrary, what I'm struggling with is how to say things clearly and succinctly.

I'm trying to get to the nub of what I want to say and I'm having great difficulty with it.

It seems mainly to be the subject. For me, the real problem stems from the way I'm feeling about things.

That is root of it for me. It's the way I feel, combined with the way I feel about the direction of fat acceptance.

I feel rather disjointed and disconnected from the ways we are approaching it. Which is fine, if I could just say why in a way that makes sense to people other than myself.

I cannot believe how hard I've found that.

Anyway, enough people have decried resolutions, but I'm definitely going to go all out to achieve greater clarity.

But I have to change the way I feel, no doubt, and that's the hardest thing of all.

Catch a tiger by the tail

One thing shocked that no one has anything to say about his ordeal. No one. Don't like golf. Don't like people who are ashamed of their humanity in general, their blackness specifically. It's not even necessary.

I do not care for Tiger Woods, or how he comes across, but his existence does not offend me. On an animal level, a cursory look at him in action marks him out as special. He has an intense free and yet contained physicality that is present in so many how are gifted athletically, whether dancers or heck just movers.

Imagine if Tiger had been the woman. As far as we can tell, he was struck inside his own home fled to his car. Pursued by his spouse brandishing what could be a lethal weapon, which she allegedly proceeded to use to hit the car. This caused him to become, understandably distracted and crash into something hard and unyielding-at speed enough to injure/ concuss him apparently. Is this an acceptable pursuit, regardless of the so called provocation?

I get the impression that he was absolutely terrified. Some people may find that amusing, that he was terrified of his wife's anger, That it's somehow OK, for a man to be in this position, but unconscionable if reversed. I don't think so.

The extent of his fear meant that he could have sustained greater injury. This from a woman who apparently on finding out of previous infractions was moved to re negotiate her pre-nup. Classy. It's interesting that one of the ladies Tiger dallied with, apologized to his wife, as if she's a big chief that must be palliated and paid tribute too. Extraordinary.

Moving joyfully

Speaking of moving your body joyfully, take a look at Tú Sí Que Vales, Spain's equivalent of X country's got talent. Sarah "Paddy" Jones who's 75 and her partner wowed the judges and audience alike.

Inspiring. 

My body

My body is an intricate animal, at once delicate and powerful. It is visceral, compelling and real.

It is me. My body is myself.

I am not a cigarette. My body is not a cigarette.

I am not alcohol. My body is not alcohol.

I am not a collection of habits. My body is not a collection of habits.

My body is my existence.

The difficulty of not being a troll

The fat chat feed's spitting up a whole lot of the fat nutritionists posts at the moment.

I think I saw this on her blog, or I just read it and didn't bother with the comments.

I did this time and after all that, it might explain in part why I couldn't quite manage to have a conversation about the intrinsic painfulness (or lack) of weight loss.

If I'd known, maybe I wouldn't have bothered at the time or at all. I think she saw me in the category of those commenter's. I think I realised then, that's how you're seen, I'd heard it before, but didn't take it seriously. But now I realise that just seems to be belligerence rather than commitment.

It along with other things have convinced me reluctantly that the discussions that revolve around fat, are not something I tend to slot into in a way that tends to be productive for either side.

I can't wholly blame or exempt myself, ditto others, it's just the way it is.

When I first got involved with the let's face it, US fatosphere, I had high hopes. To change the world, to cure cancer.....nah, I'm fibbing.

My overriding 'ambition' was to have a conversation about fat that had some fluency of mutual understanding. And to be part of a societal intervention in the form of personifying the elision marked 'fat people'. They can't keep on with this obese shit if we are just being too human at them.

My hubris has undone me, and I find that I set the bar too high on both counts.

So what's the plan now?

Oh I'm the wo-man with the plan.

To just find out what I think, to keep reading the 'sphere and in regard to other people's spaces, learn to keep my comments to myself.

I can't believe how hard the latter is.

I feel like I'm really primed to contribute, I never was before, so I was in a different state of mind. I was also not a joiner as I always found fundamental differences, whether I wanted to or not.

So, when I persuaded myself to overcome this reluctance, it didn't occur to me that I'd need practise or that I would need to withdraw, it feels strange to do this whilst still feeling a sense of commitment.

Anyhow, this post has not turned out to go the way it should have gone, so I'll end it here.

Changes

Just re-jigging this blog a bit. Getting rid of some old posts that I feel could have been expressed better. I may re-post them if I feel I can clarify what I was trying to say.

I've requested I be taken off the fat feeds as although I'm an enthusiast for fat acceptance, I'm not sure this is or will be a fat acceptance blog. I'm not sure it's a good fit.

I also feel that trying to avoid stepping on certain sensibilities is not the best aid to my flow. Which can be spirally at the best of times.

My aim is to write more about what I've learned, rather than being so reactive. There is nothing wrong with that, it's more the way I'm reacting and what I'm reacting to.

One of the more frustrating things aboutthis whole experience is getting the viewpoint and experiences of myself as a fat person-I hope others can share in that, if not, fair enough, at least I can say, that's what I thought and was able to express to the best of my abilities.