A past ranttacular!

Hey all.

I'm not feeling particularly creative today (and my outfit SUCKS), so I won't be posting any new hilarious stuff. But I thought I would post something on here that I posted a few months ago on my Livejournal.

First, a bit of back story. On 25th October last year a blogger named Maura Kelly posted this article on the Marie Claire website about fat people on television. Well, that was how the article started out, anyway. Eventually it sort of morphed into a fairly detailed synopsis of her opinion of fat people and obesity in general.

I encourage everybody to read this article, and before you read either a) her subsequent apology in italics, and b) some of the comments below, have a really good, honest think about what Maura says in the article. Think about whether or not you agree, at least in part, with what she's saying. If you think she's being an insensitive, uneducated, misunderstanding prick, then please read on and enjoy the comments from many people that agree with you. If you do agree with Maura, I hope I can show you another side of the coin with what I'm about to post on here.

When I first read the article (lovingly linked at Fatshionista), I felt my insides burn up with outrage and anger and a bunch of other generally undesirable emotions. After spending a few hours calming myself down by reading the comments posted about the article (for once the comments were of the sort of calibre that I found soothing... once I'd waded through the pathetic waffle), I decided to spend some time picking out some of the worst parts and ranting about them separately.

Here is what I wrote on my Livejournal:

Seriously. Whenever someone posts an article in fatshionista I make an effort to read it, and I've been kind of annoyed before, but this? This is really, really shocking. And my emotions are dulled from lack of sleep right now. This article screams ignorance, prejudice, and such a laughably inaccurate perception of the subject matter (ie. fat people) that I would almost pity her, if I didn't currently hate her so much.

"the show centers around a couple who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous group [and] has drawn complaints for its abundance of fat jokes [as well as] cries from some viewers who aren't comfortable watching intimacy between two plus-sized actors." (not her actual words, but I'm going to comment on it anyway)
erm... there there? Would you like the makers of this show to come, kiss your bruises better and give you a lollipop from what most people are sure to probably believe is an ample back-up supply? Is the idea of fat people being in love, or hell, even engaging in casual sex, just too horrific for most thin people's minds?
Does anybody else feel that this blurb is insinuating that the general public is bigoted enough to not want fat people being happy on television? Or am I overanalysing this?

I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity!
Exactly how is having fat people on TV promoting obesity? That's like saying that having tall people on TV is promoting platform shoes.

Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy.
*sigh*. I know I don't have to say ANYTHING about this quote to ANYBODY who's a member of this comm, but dammit, I'm going to say it anyway, and at least provide some relief by putting everything in bullet points
* Anorexia is "sick"? That's really, really nice. I'm sure the approximately zero or so anorexics out there not struggling with crippling body image issues will be DELIGHTED to read that their condition is viewed in such a casually insensitive way.
* Some slim models are simply naturally skinny, that is very true. Doesn't mean that they're healthy though. If a person is naturally skinny, that generally means that they will remain skinny whether their daily food consumption is an exact copy of the food pyramid, a blatant disregard for the bottom three levels of said pyramid, or a complete tossing out of the pyramid altogether in favour of a bag of carrot sticks and several packs of Marlboro Lights. But you know what? Who cares if they're healthy or not? It's their fucking lives. Evidently this author agrees with me, since she was totally fine with those people existing. They're skinny, after all.
* All right, I admit, I did agree with the bit about Mike and Molly not possibly being healthy at that size. Because you know what? It's TOTALLY possible to divine, just by looking at their bodies, that these two people could not POSSIBLY have a healthy diet, and they could not POSSIBLY exercise regularly, and their fatness could not POSSIBLY be the result of the dozens of other reasons, besides an unhealthy lifestyle, that cause people to be overweight. It's nice to see that at least a small part of this article is completely logical. Now, where did I put my shotgun...

And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for.
Ahh, you're the Treasurer of the United States, are you? Good show. I'd have thought the cabinet would prefer somebody who isn't a total fucking idiot, but what do I know?

So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything.
Yeah, I hear you. And you know what really sucks? We fats have to cope with the ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIC SIGHT of fat people being in any way functional human beings, every time we look in a mirror. Your empathetic heart must bleed as you wonder how we cope.

To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.
OK, all joking and sarcasm aside (particularly in reference to your mispelling the word 'heroin', yes, this was brutal. So why the fuck did you write it? And I'll tell you why it was brutal. Because what you have just done here is equate fat people to alcoholics and drug addicts. Do you quite understand the gravity of that? You have taken fat people, and equalled them to a group of individuals who have serious, life-threatening, life-CONSUMING, disaster-inducing behaviours. You have placed fat people under the same telescope as people who are dealing with horrific conditions that require serious will-power, time and determination to overcome, and have said that fatness, like alcoholism and drug-addiction, is a serious, life-threatening, life-consuming, disaster-inducing behaviour. This is so far off the mark that even the Hubble Telescope at its strongest couldn't see the mark from where you stand.
But even if what you had said was TRUE, you said, without any trace of subtlety, that all of these people disgust you.
Well you know what? Fine. Because insensitive, unaware, pathetic bullies like you disgust me.

Now, don't go getting the wrong impression: I have a few friends who could be called plump. I'm not some size-ist jerk.
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes you are.

I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over.
A quote that will go down in history as really hammering down the fact that you know absolutely nothing.

I'm happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods wi--BLAH BLAH BLAH YEAH WE'VE ALL BEEN HERE BEFORE.
*sniffle* I'm truly touched that you would deign to help us poor, helpless fat people with your weight-loss knowledge and infinite wisdom. Because until this point none of us had EVER been told how to lose weight. If only somebody out there had been kind and considerate enough to butt into our lives and force preachy weight-loss bullshit down our throats at every opportunity, and feel that doing this is not something that they should feel remotely ashamed of, because, after all, they're trying to "help" us, and we, as the lesser-beings that have let ourselves go so far as to be fat, should be eternally grateful.

Do you think I'm being an insensitive jerk?
You know, I'd snappily say "what the hell do YOU think?" and point at the rest of this essay-length comment, but I honestly think that you would still not actually be sure of my opinion. And I'll be honest with you - you can't fake stupidity like that.

Dessert-buffet-tacular! And why having a belly can be awesome.

Greetings, watchers! Have you all noticed the subtle change in my name? It seemed criminal of me to have a blog that talks primarily about fat acceptance stuff, and for it to have a title that doesn't reflect its content well. For this reason, I decided to add a T, thereby changing "Fashion" to "Fatshion"; a blend between "Fat" and "Fashion", because that is what this blog is. Or at least what it aims to be.

So, today was pretty fantastic, I have to say. You'll all be relieved to hear that I wore clothes:



I've GOT to start turning my light on before I take these shots. Anyway, my outfit today was admittedly not very interesting, but I wanted to show you all a picture of my purple skinny jeans. Unlike that sorry excuse for skinny jeans I presented a 'before' shot of in my sewing outfit, I can actually call these babies "skinny" without feeling the need to demand that they explain themselves. However, they are INCREDIBLY baggy on the top half. I won't be criticising Asos for this, because fatties are so diverse in their body proportions that it is impossible to make trousers that will fit correctly on each and every one of us. However, needless to say, these jeans require a makeover. And I'll be getting to that arduous task in a few days' time, hopefully.

Anyway, today I gathered up a group of merry men (myself and my friends B and R) and headed to a dessert buffet place in Shibuya, called Sweets Paradise. If anybody out there, anybody at all, is vaguely interested in the prospect of all-you-can-eat cake, this is the place for you.

Behold! Pictures!







And the remaining debris:



After licking our plates clean and thinking that we will quite possibly never have to eat again, we went to karaoke and ended up staying there for three hours. Some of the songs I showed considerably prowess in mimicking (ie. B and R's ears weren't bleeding after I was done with them) were "Telephone" by Lady Gaga, "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani, "You're My Best Friend" by Queen, and "In My Life" by the Beatles. I wanted dearly to sing "On My Own" from Les Miserables, because the damn song has been in my head for the past three days, but they didn't have it in the song catalogue. We headed home afterwards, feeling full, happy, and as though we'd done something, if not necessarily worthwhile, certainly incredibly fun, today.


People appear to have arrived back here from an event that was taking place tonight at a nearby restaurant (an event I would have gone to, had it not cost 2,500 yen and only been for two hours). And of course, they aren't troubling to keep their voices down. Most considerate of them.

One thing I noticed while sitting in the karaoke room listening to B and R singing obscure K-pop songs, was how I was sitting. I was slouched on the couch, my feet resting on a footstool in front of me. My hands were clasped lightly together and resting on my stomach. And because of the shape and size of my stomach, my hands were able to rest there, quite comfortably, without any danger of falling off and lying to rest awkwardly by my sides.

This got me thinking. If I did not have a stomach that stuck out like mine does, I would not be able to attain such a comfortable yet non-threatening position. If I wanted to put my hands somewhere comfortable like that, but I didn't possess my sort of stomach, I'd probably have to fold my arms. Indeed, I do do this on occasion. But that is a very threatening-looking position, and probably the sort of position you want to avoid when you're out with friends. So instead you're stuck with putting your hands on your legs, or to your sides, which can be kind of awkward. I, however, seem to carry a personal "handstool" (as opposed to "footstool") with me wherever I go.

So amused was I by this discovery, that I decided the time was right for me to make a list of the advantages to having a protruding, squishy belly, flabby arms, a well-padded posterior and wide legs like mine. The disadvantages to having such appendages are plentiful, but I think we can all already name a great many of those so there's not much point in me repeating them. This angle, however, is pretty new. So, here we go:


Fatshion Hustlings' List of Awesome Advantages to Having Body Fat

1. The fat stomach's aforementioned "handstool" use. Very handy when your hands are bothering you and you want to put them somewhere vaguely accessible, so that they can be called on easily when you next need them.

2. Fat people make excellent cushions for other living creatures. So far the only living creatures that have utilised my body for this purpose are my brothers and a few past and present cats. But none of them have issued any complaints about the comfort of my body. In fact, one brother used to use my arm for a cushion, and he once said "It would be sad if you lost weight, in the sense that your arm wouldn't be so comfortable anymore." And I can vouch for that - I use my arms as cushions often. I think this is a particularly good point, however. Let's consider intimate relationships for a moment here. I'm admittedly no expert, but I think one of the great things (and certainly one of the things I'm looking forward to) about a romantic relationship is the ability to draw comfort from each other's bodies. At the moment when I want comfort, I will stroke a cat's fur. In an intimate relationship I can absolutely see myself stroking my lover's hair for comfort. I'll also breathe in the familiar (and really, really nice - don't ask me why) smell of my cat. You get the idea. There's comfort in the familiarity, the warmth, the affection, the uniqueness of it. And fat bodies, in my opinion, are so well-equipped at being a source of comfort for people. We are squishy everywhere, so our hugs are fantastic. We make excellent cushions, so leaning on us is wonderful. And we carry that squishiness with us everywhere. You can even squeeze our arms to relieve stress, if we permit it. I'm kind of happy to know that I can provide that sort of support to people, just by being me.

3. Our fat is kind of fascinating to watch. It jiggles when we move! You can press down on it for ages! It can be poked and prodded and played with! Come on!

4. It protects more vital organs. OK, not entirely sure if that's true. But if it is? Awesome!

Edit: A mate of mine, D, provided me with this link, which shows that, yes, this is in fact true. Or at least it was in the past. :P

5. It is a form of stored energy, so we could potentially live off it for a long while, should food ever become scarce. This is a weak point for a number of reasons, but I'm putting it up anyway. Admittedly, if our bodies were starving, they'd eat up muscle before going to the fat cells, and fat in itself is hardly nutritionally sound enough for humans to survive using their deposits up. But yeah, if I were to be in a famine-like situation (extremely unlikely of course, but for argument's sake let's say it happened) I would last for far longer than people without that sort of emergency storage.

6. It protects us from the cold. I don't really like wearing jumpers. Mainly because in the course of one day I have to wash my hands a few times, and I HATE how wet sleeves feel on my hands. As such I'll avoid wearing jumpers whenever possible. And because I'm fat, that's so much more doable than it would be for a thinner person. My brother is frequently cold.

7. It protects us from injury. An image of Homer Simpson being hit by a cannon ball comes to mind. But yeah, it's true. I rarely get badly injured, even though I'm pretty klutz-y. When I fall down (an event that in itself measures on the richter scale) I'm normally OK to jump right back up again, because it's rare that I'm going to directly hit some bone or joint or something. Most of me is surrounded by a layer of blubber, or the blubber sticks out enough to protect protruding bone in its wake. On the other hand, one very thin friend of mine has bruises down her spine. She says she gets them from lying down, because her spinal column has no protection from the ground, or whatever. Um, OUCH! That would MAJORLY suck. I can't imagine getting injured just from lying down. All around me is soft, reliable padding. You've got to feel sorry for people without it.


That's about all I've got for now. But I think it's a pretty good list so far. And I think that for all fatties it is worth bearing this stuff in mind. Fat acceptance is about "accepting" our fat (because people like things to be spelled out in titles, and all), and that's absolutely great. But maybe part of doing that is to figure out what about our fatness is actually BETTER than what other people have, so that when other people start talking about the disadvantages of being fat, you are able to turn around and say "touche, old boy, but we can ALSO..."

Just a thought.

Outfittacular! And what I do with my razor.

This probably is not a post you'll want to read if talk about body hair makes you squeamish. I will try to be as tasteful as possible, but, yeah. You've been warned.

So, to kick things off, here's what I'm wearing today:



And to the side:



I am truly sorry about the shitty lighting. If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you should be able to see it fairly well.

I've worn this outfit (or at least the top half of it) a few times now, and I quite like the purple/light pink combo. The shirt is one of the many items of clothing I got for my 21st birthday last year, and the cardigan thing is something I purchased off yoursclothing.co.uk. The jeans are Marks and Spencers, purchased before I left the UK to come to Japan. They're nice jeans actually - quite thick, but stretchy and comfortable, unlike the other pair I bought there that digs into my stomach like it knows for sure there's buried treasure under there.

I'm also kind of liking what my hair's doing today. I gave it a pretty decent wash last night, so it's feeling pretty soft and the curls are quite bouncy. The issue of taming the curls is one I will have to deal with at some point in the future.

All right, that's the outfit out of the way. The main thing I wanted to talk about is something that I think a lot of women, and certainly a lot of fat women, have to deal with. Body hair.

Body hair is not fun for women, particularly in this day and age when even hair that EVERY woman has in abundance is considered unsightly, and the only hair that is really, truly permissible is what grows on your head. This irks me, as someone who struggles to grow adequate hair on her head but has absolutely NO trouble growing it on the rest of her body.

Now, hair comes in a variety of formats, as I think most people know. The hair that grows on the head is different to the hair that grows on the arms and legs is different to pubic/facial hair. This is why many men grow beards that are vastly different in colour to the hair on their heads. My brother's beard is alarmingly ginger-y. Even if you didn't know this, you probably had some kind of intuition about it because of differences in the characteristics of the hair (it feels different, looks different, etc).

Everybody has the light arm and leg hair from childhood (with some rare exceptions, of course). When puberty hits, a lot of this hair will turn into the thicker, more noticeable hair that exists on the more stereotypically "manly" of men in more abundance than on anyone else. Some men don't grow much of this hair at all, and such men are often teased about never having gone through puberty. Of course, in this "hair is horrible!" age those men are at a considerable advantage, but whatevs.

On women, this hair is only really supposed to grow on our nether-regions and under our arms, and for the women that I personally would deem "lucky", this is the case. On many of the rest of us, however, this black, thick, unsightly hair appears on many other parts of the body. To anybody who reads this blog, has this problem, and thinks that they are utterly alone in their suffering, take it from me: YOU'RE NOT.

And so at this juncture, I would like to talk about the wonderful (*cough*) dance that my beloved razor and I have to do every two or three days in the shower.

First, after I have put conditioner in my hair, I apply facial soap to my face. This done, I take the razor and carefully remove the past few day's worth of growth that has sprouted under my chin and along my lower jaw. This can be tricky, as I can't really see how it looks in the mirror, but I've been doing this for several years and haven't yet had a problem.

Next come the underarms. Not so embarrassing a procedure, because everybody has underarm hair.

Then comes my breasts. Yeah. See why I put the warning up at the start of this entry? It's common for men to have this thick hair growing around the nipples, and I can tell you now that it's not so rare on women either. I have to be really careful when I complete this part of the ritual. I'm only removing a few stray black hairs that grow there, but they grow alarmingly close to my nipples, and also if I don't pay attention I can easily miss them.

I really don't like the word 'nipple'.

Next comes the area under my navel. I'm guessing the hair grows here because it's near my nether-regions. I don't know. But anyway, I get quite a few thick black hairs growing there, so off they go.

Last comes my nether-regions. Now, I realise that many people choose to either leave this area alone (and good on you if you do), or just shave or trim along the outside, to tidy everything up a bit, present a nice bikini line, and all that good stuff. I just get rid of it all. This started a few years ago, when I was kind of curious about what it would be like to not have any hair down there, and I got a strange rash. In order to see the rash better I decided that now was the time for me to see what it was like to revert back to the genitals of my childhood. Since then it's become something of a habit. To be honest, it isn't the nicest of habits. It gets very prickly after a few days and it's always at least scratchy. I have a feeling that some day I'll get sick of the prickliness, or a future boyfriend will get sick of the prickliness, or I'll be unable to reach properly down there, or something, and I'll let it grow back. And I'd be kind of OK with it all growing back too. But for now I'll stick to my bizarre ritual.

And that's the end of it. I don't regularly shave my legs at the moment, because it's a pain in the arse to do and nobody sees them anyway. If I'm about to wear a dress I'll make the effort, but there seems to be little point otherwise. I don't do any waxing, because I'm a wimp. Although I wouldn't mind investigating more long-lasting methods for removing facial hair, because the prickly feeling is particularly undesirable there. My face feels like sandpaper.

The reason why I wanted to talk about my hair-removal rituals was to outline just where exactly body hair grows on some women. I am, I believe, fairly hairy for a white overweight chick. I would wager that black people and brown people often have far more extensive hair trouble than I do. As for the asians, well... yeah, bugger off. Lucky bastards. :P

But yeah, as I said before. Everybody who is both female and somewhat mortified by the unsightly hair that grows under their chin or under their navel, you are certainly, CERTAINLY, not alone.

Outfittacular!! And my personal history with sewing.

I thought I'd take a break from my usual angry rants about fat stigmatisation (fun and hopefully educational though those are), and talk about a few other things that people might be interested in with regards to me.

First, what I wore today!


A more full profile:


And a close-up of my annoyed-looking, double-chin-tastic face:

I am watching you...

My face is looking a bit spotty at the moment, which is irritating. It always happens when I regularly apply the 3-way cleanser toner moisturiser thing. Nothing against Clinique's system or anything, but my skin seems to fare better when I'm not using any type of cleansing product. I'd stop using said cleansing products, but I use the cleanser as shaving cream (more on that unfortunate aspect of my my beauty routine in a later post)

Anyway, so, the shirt is one of my new favourites. Purchased from yoursclothing.co.uk, I love the two-tone off-the-shoulder style. There's something subtly sexy about it, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm all about subtle sexiness.

The trousers are also a pair of my favourites. Loose cargo-type affairs that I got for my 21st birthday (along with many other clothes). There's nothing flashy about them, but they're light and comfortable and I don't feel like I'm having difficulty breathing when I sit down in them, which if beyond fantastic for a fattie in these jeans-enlightened times. My one complaint about them is that they keep falling down, so I'm forever hoisting them up while walking. This problem could easily be solved by me wearing a belt (or my "belt-scarf", as I have christened it), and I've only just realised that these trousers have belt loops, so I think I'd better start doing that, hehe.

I was also really pleased with my hair today. My hair is... difficult, at the best of times. And it always has been. It has come to my embarrassingly recent discovery that my hair is naturally quite curly, and that if I start treating it as curly hair then I should notice a difference in how it looks and feels. I've been looking up ways in which to give my hair the lovin' it deserves, and some of them have proven quite positive. I've stopped brushing it and I've stopped using shampoo. I apply liberal amounts of conditioner instead and work that into the scalp. I also don't towel-dry it, instead using an old t-shirt to scrunch my hair up and let it fall down. And I don't straighten it any more, although I might be wont to do that on very special occasions. So now my hair feels amazing and there is certainly more curl coming through, but the frizzy bits are still a bit problem. I'm beginning to think the only solution for that will be to use some kind of mousse or gel. dammit. i hate mousses and gels - they make my hair crunchy.

The sacrifices me make for beauty, hey?

Anyway, onto my second topic for today, sewing. I talk often on various journals and comms about my sewing efforts, so I thought that I would outline my history of sewing and why I've recently gotten into it as a way to extend my wardrobe for the better.

I learned how to sew when I was... young. :P Six or seven, I think. I really enjoyed it, even then. There was something about the rhythmic action of pulling a needle and thread through fabric over and over again that had a calming effect on me. I also enjoyed the idea of creating something with my hands.

As a kid, I grew up in a poor household. I wouldn't say that we were part of the working class, and I've never identified as somebody of the working classes, but we certainly did struggle with money, often. As a result we got a lot of hand-me-downs from family friends a few houses up. Among these hand-me-downs was, I remember quite clearly, a coat. I wore that coat to school all during the winter, and I loved it. After a while, however, I noticed that the stitching under one of the arms was coming loose, and it occurred to me that I should try to sew it up again. Tentatively holding needle and thread (scrounged up from god-knows-where in our impossibly messy house), I performed the familiar motions carefully, knowing that this would effect something that I was intending to wear. When I was done, the result was messy, clumsy, and certainly not a selling point if I had wanted to put the coat up for auction, but there was no denying that the coat was fixed. I was incredibly pleased with myself.

In year 7 I was taught how to use a sewing machine in high school. The thought of using a sewing machine was beyond exciting for me. This was the machine that my grandma tinkered on a lot of the time, after all. And my grandma is awesome! With my newly-acquired sewing skills I made a pair of shorts, which upon reflection were ugly as sin. But it was the process that mattered. I could now use a sewing machine. Also during year 7, I made a large library bag, with my grandma, on her sewing machine, which is so much more amazing than the sewing machines at my high school.

My love for sewing continued all through high school and unto university, but the sewing I did in those years was mostly of the fixing-things variety. I shortened the hem of my skirt for year 12, I fixed one of the poorer-quality of my soft toys, several times, I fixed a lot of my clothes, etc.

Then, during the second term of 2nd year uni (about a year ago), I was looking for a picture of a French horn with which to create a default icon for livejournal. The picture on the left there was the icon I eventually created, but during my search I came across the picture on the right, which, as a Guitar Hero fangirl, AND as a horn player, I thought amazing.
Upon further scrutiny I discovered that the picture came on a shirt, and I felt myself practically come with happiness. The question at that juncture was not so much "would I get the shirt?" as it was "how fast can I get it sent over?" To my amusement, I discovered that the only size left was a 2X in men's. Whatever, I thought. At least it wouldn't be too small.








It was like a tent:



Clearly something had to be done. After taking some time to ask my loyal band of brothers at fatshionista what they would recommend me do, I ended up taking something like four inches off the hem, shortening the sleeves and widening the hemline. My final result?



While far from perfect (in fact I was to do some more altering with it when I have it in my possession again), the process awoke something in me. My love for clothes-altering had truly begun.

In Japan, my love intensified when I got this baby:



Cost me about 6,000 yen, and it is everything I want in a sewing machine and nothing more. It's perfect.

So far I have completely changed the design of three t-shirts, taken in two more shirts, and (my proudest, though still kind of unfinished, moment yet) altered a pair of jeans. And so, people, I present to you: The Hustler Sewing Gallery (so far)!

Befores:










Afters:


This was the first of the three shirts I altered. Overall I was really pleased with the result. I liked the wide neckline - again, that subtle sexiness appealed to me. I think I liked showing my shoulders. The photo doesn't do the shirt justice, unfortunately.


This one was supposed to be a similar shape to the red number, and I think I succeeded in that, but there are little differences. The main one is that this shirt's neckline isn't as good. It's a bit wider (and in my opinion, too wide), and it's a bit wonky as well. I like the shirt and I wear it (the picture on it is hilarious, for one thing), but it's not my best effort.


This one was a major accomplishment for me, because it involved me doing more with the original sleeves than just getting them off. With this shirt, I cut off the sleeves, took in the rest of the shirt, took in the sleeves (after doing every single appropriate arm-hole measurement about three times apiece), shortened the sleeves, and finally sewed them back onto the shirt again. My sewing machine played up a bit for this shirt, so the sewing isn't as good as it is on the other clothes I've done, but the style is great. I'm very proud of this one.


I was so excited about how these turned out! When I first put these jeans on (jeans that were advertised as "skinny jeans", I'll have you know), I had to resist the urge to laugh. As I've said time and time again to anyone who'll listen, the jeans were skinny like I am. So after spending a lot of time pulling them on, pulling them off again, measuring, measuring, and doing some more measuring, I took in from the top of my thigh down, doing my best to sew according to the shape of my leg. I think I did pretty well. However, the jeans sit so high up my waist that it would not be inaccurate to say that the waistband is more like a below-breasts-band. So I've still got a bit of work to do on these babies.


So, that's about it. For my next trick, I'll be altering another pair of jeans (purple ones!), but that won't happen for a while yet. I've still got an exam or two to think about.

Peace out, y'all.

Why the fat=unhealthy argument falls flat on its arse...tacular.

Maybe I should have thought for a while before dedicating myself to the "-tacular" schtick.

I realised in my last post, which talks about the supposed threat fat people have on nationwide health care systems like the British NHS, that some of my arguments might fly over many people's heads.

The reason for this is simple. Obesity, as it is known and portrayed in society, is viewed as an enormous, catastrophic health epidemic. You've heard all the taglines before: "Kids will die sooner than their parents!" "One in three women in *insertcountryhere* is overweight!" "Obesity is the leading cause of heart problems!" "Obesity causes impotence!" "Obesity causes most common cancers!" "Obese individuals are biologically twenty years older than their thin counterparts!" etc etc.

These were the sorts of taglines I used to sticky-tape to my walls and paste in my Everything books to try and get my arse into gear and lose weight. Everybody around me has been telling me to lose weight since I was seven. When I was three I apparently had to lose weight too. I... don't know. Too much fruit juice or some malarkey like that. This was a curious thing indeed. And I certainly didn't get it. I was a kid. A kid that liked food. Mum took some time a month or so ago to assure me, quite categorically, that my being overweight was totally my fault. Well no, that's harsh. The conversation went something like this:

Me: You know how I was pretty overweight since I was three?
Mum: Hmm, well, it was more like when you were seven.
Me: Oh, OK, seven then. Well, I tended to eat pretty healthily back then, right? I mean, I ate what I was given.
Mum: Mostly, but you used to sneak food. And you were never interested in doing exercise. I used to try and get you into dancing, but you were never really into that back then.
Me: Huh...

I'm definitely overreacting. Definitely. The thought that occurs to me, though, is: Why did I used to sneak food? I know why I "never used to exercise" (not true. I ran around and stuff), but why I used to sneak food... hmm. Could it have been because I was, I dunno, HUNGRY?

Anyway, yeah, so I was told to lose weight from when I was seven. I was rewarded for losing weight, scolded for gaining it, forced to watch what I ate from when I was a very young age and wanted to be allowed to eat a packet of chips like all the other kids but was instead stuck with an apple (and let me assure you in no uncertain terms that I fucking HATE apples)... it's no wonder I rebelled. It's no wonder I still rebel, even though my eating is mostly my business and mine alone, now. And for most of my life I figured that was how it should be. I was fat, after all. I was in severe danger of dying far younger than anybody else I knew, and didn't I know that being fat was the most unhealthy thing in the whole entire world?

When I allow myself to think back to my childhood, to all the crying, all the guilt and the shame associated with eating a mars bar, and of my proclamations that "it was UNFAIR!" and "WHY couldn't I be THIN like all the OTHER kids?", to my tiny little pathetic world that was always, always, CONSTANTLY about me needing to exercise and not "needing" to eat and all of that crap while everybody else got to be free from it all, it upsets me, angers me, and hurts me even more, to know that all of that bullshit was for nothing. Because the correlation between obesity and health is total bullshit.

That's right. You heard me. Total bullshit. And the amazing thing is that most people in the world are not privy to the information that they really, REALLY need to know about obesity.

A lot of us are taught as children that people come in all shapes, sizes, colours, flavours (at my school, we had to lick all of our classmates to confirm this one. The Indian kids tasted like curry ;)), etc. What I think a lot of people don't quite understand is how broad the term "shapes and sizes" really is. We accept and acknowledge that people come in all shapes and sizes, but as soon as we see either an exceptionally thin person, or an incredibly fat person, we automatically feel that that person must be that way through some freakish behaviour on that person's part. So the thin person eats nothing at all and the fat person is taking a toilet break from quaffing pints of lard. And you know what? Sometimes that's true. But sometimes it's the thin person that's quaffing the lard and the fat person who's eating nothing at all. And for most, there's a happy medium. I think teaching people that we come in all shapes and sizes is great, but it requires a certain amount of follow-up as well. How are people supposed to believe that people come in all shapes and sizes, when only a pretty pathetically small range of those sizes is considered "normal" and "natural"?

Another important thing to realise is the difference between "obesity" and "not looking after yourself". I admit that my diet is not very good. I'm trying to work on it, but my love of junk food and my ED and my general laziness make it hard. That's not an excuse, but I'm laying it out there. I was raised by a mother who felt that "healthy" meant "artificially-sweetened low-fat high-sugar chemically-processed bullshit food that tastes like crap but has less of something in it". She had (and still has) really warped ideas about what constitutes as healthy food. I was raised with that, people! I am also a genuine lover of the food you get at fast-food places. hamburgers are fantastic. I love pizza, I love fried chicken, I love hot chips... and I'm not shy about that love. So what I've started trying to do is to make my own versions of these foods. This is pretty hard in a country where I don't have an oven or deep fryer to work with, but I'm sure you can appreciate the sentiment. I also don't exercise much. Not at the moment anyway.

But other fats aren't like me. Other fats do eat well. Other fats do exercise, lots, and really enjoy it. In fact, more of them would enjoy it if they could bear the idea of people looking at them and laughing at them for working up a sweat, even though thin people work up a sweat too. They just look prettier working up a sweat, I guess. *shrug* And you know which fats are much more likely to exercise for long periods of time? The fats who have accepted that they are fat, and while not necessarily being cool with being fat are at least able to accept that that is all they'll ever be, and they might as well be healthy because lord knows they ain't ever going to be thin. When you remove that sort of "must be thin must be thin must be thin" pressure from yourself, the exciting world of exercise really opens its doors to you. It's fun! It's good for you! It makes you feel amazing! etc etc etc.

I think it is time for the world to stop focusing on fatness, and start focusing on health. The two are not the same, and more people need to see that.

A couple of Hamtacular thoughts on fatness and health care. And an outfit!

So I was sitting at my computer, eating Bourbon MiniBit Assorted chocolates and avoiding starting the utterly bullshit essay I have to compose at some point this weekend for my equally bullshit Irish play class (we read Irish plays and discussed them. Interesting, but I'm so never doing this sort of class again, unless I'm UNSPEAKABLY interested in the subject matter), my friend, Kitty (whose incredibly interesting blog, Living to eat... an online celebration of food, can be viewed here demanded that I update my blog. I told her I would do it some other time, but then we were discussing things about health care and I thought "hell, anything to not have to start this bullshit essay for a few more minutes"

So now I am sitting at my computer, eating Oreos (I twist and dunk - not the biggest fan of the 'lick' part of the trio. I'm getting pretty good at dunking them for the right amount of time) and avoiding starting the utterly bullshit essay I have to compose at some point this weekend for my equally bullshit Irish play class. I challenge anybody to tell me that my life does not contain variety, and not have me completely ignore them because I do not want to accept the fact that it's true.

Anyway, so we were discussing the Pill. She was saying that she believed the Pill should be subsidised by the Australian government. At first I disagreed, saying that subsidising the Pill was effectively subsidising a choice that people are making (ie. the choice to have sex). I obviously have no problem with people making that choice (it is certainly the choice I would be making if I could, because I am the stereotypically randy fat girl :P), but I think it is up to the people who make that choice to take full responsibility for that choice, and pay whatever they need to pay to acquire adequate birth control. If the person is that eager to avoid unwanted pregnancy and can't afford birth control for whatever reason, then don't have sex. Perhaps I'm being an utter bastard for saying that, but hey, pregnancy-avoiding masturbation is 100% free. ;) I still stand by that statement, but she, being much more economically-minded than I am, mentioned the economic benefits to subsidising the Pill, and I have to admit, she made a very fair point. Making the Pill available for people who can't afford it would alleviate a lot of the economic burden unwanted pregnancies create, when it comes to people not wanting or knowing how to raise children, treating them badly, teaching them unhealthy habits, not caring for them, etc. In terms of legal and health costs, that shit adds up.

The other argument for the Pill being subsidised by the government falls back to the health benefits of the Pill. The Pill is good for alleviating a lot of hormone-related problems in many people, and many take it for those reasons rather than reasons of birth control. To that argument, I say hells yeah it should be subsidised, but so should ALL prescription medication. I am not the most socialist person in the world, but I think that health is something that should be available for everybody, not just those who are rich (and therefore better able to lead healthy lifestyles anyway) and healthy (because, you know, healthy people are the ones who need health care the most... *facepalm*). I think the British with their NHS have the right idea. All prescription medication in England costs 7.20 (I'd add a pound sign, but my Australian keyboard doesn't have one, and British keyboards can suck a wang as far as I'm concerned. As if the @ sign should be anywhere other than above the 2). In Wales it is apparently free, but I can appreciate that in larger countries than Wales that is probably unsustainable. So medication isn't subsidised fully by the government, but it's subsidised enough. And health care in England is available for everyone. It's paid for with taxes. And it's good. And the British still like to have a cry about it. Once a pom, always a pom, hey?

This got me thinking about these sorts of public health care systems in general. My friend was talking about subsidising the Pill. But one other thing that I've heard talk on being subsidised by the government is gastric bypass surgery. Of course, many people would assume that the reason for this idea is to improve the health of obese individuals, because having them weigh less will make them healthier. That's bullshit, of course, but one cannot deny that it is the opinion held by society. People would, however, be wrong in thinking that the government cares enough about obese people (or people in general) to want to improve their health. The REAL reason for their considering subsidising gastric bypass surgery is because it is believed that overweight people put an incredible amount of strain on health care.

...hmm. All right. Fine. That's an opinion. And I can understand, considering how 'fat' is considered to automatically mean 'unhealthy', how it is an opinion with many supporters.

But let's have a serious think about this. The livejournal community fatshionista often has posts by some poor blighter looking for a "fat-friendly" doctor near where they live. A "fat-friendly" doctor is somebody who will treat them as a patient just like they would any thin person, without placing negative judgements on them because of their weight. The fact that they have to actively look for such health care professionals is enough to make me want to slap everybody who doesn't fit that mould right in their stupid biased unfair ignorant faces, but I think it raises an interesting point. If fat people are actively trying to find fat-friendly doctors, then that implies that their current doctor is not fat-friendly. Now, if your doctor is the sort that makes you feel uncomfortable, would you actively seek their help and guidance for any occasion that isn't an absolute emergency? I certainly wouldn't. I don't like going to the doctor at the best of times. I find it a pain in the arse, waiting for the doctor is really boring, I don't really like having to talk to people, etc. But if my doctor constantly made me feel uncomfortable as well, I would be even more reluctant than I currently am. And if fat people are having trouble finding doctors that make them feel comfortable, then it stands to reason to assume that they will not go to the doctor very often at all, whether they are healthy or not.

does it therefore not stand to reason that fat people would actually NOT be draining health care resources? Let's for argument's sake say that a fat person and a thin person both have mild forms of asthma. Asthma's pretty nasty, and even people with mild cases of it should have an inhaler handy at all times. For the thin person, this is no problem. She goes to the doctor, they have a lovely chat, etc. For the fat person, however... I'd be prepared to wager a fair amount of imaginary money that many would go to their (incredibly non-fat-friendly) doctor, who would look them up and down and say "can i weigh you?" The fat person, who is kind of confused because asthma has nothing to do with a person's weight, agrees, is weighed, and told to sit down. The doctor spends a few moments saying OK to the inhaler prescription, then spends the rest of the visit talking to the fat person about effective methods of weight loss. The fat person, who, as a modern fat person, has heard of these methods time and time again, sits there and nods and pretends to be interested, and leaves the office feeling utterly humiliated and also somewhat frustrated, because she wanted to spend some time talking to the doctor about other ways to fend off asthma attacks (cleaning the house, breathing exercises, etc). The consultation was supposed to be about asthma, a condition that has nothing to do with a person's weight, and the doctor has turned it into a full-blown weight-loss lecture.

Now, which one of those two people is more likely to stay as far away from doctors as humanly possible, to avoid that sort of discomfort from happening?

I can certainly understand people thinking that we drain more health resources because we're obviously more unhealthy. But even if fat people WERE more unhealthy than thin people, it takes some pretty serious balls to be a fat person and go to a doctor to ask for help, and a lot of us don't have those sorts of balls. We put up with enough shit from the rest of the world. Why would we put up with that sort of humiliation from medical professionals who are supposed to be helping us, not make us feel ashamed. And to the medical professionals who think that making fat people feel ashamed will motivate them to lose weight? ...no, it won't. Sorry.

So, before I leave this issue, let's talk about the types of people who DO eat up health-care resources unnecessarily. Smokers, heavy drinkers, people who frequently use massive amounts of recreational drugs, people who engage in demanding sports, people who engage in self-mutilating activities for fun... I could go on. Now, every single one of these activities is a choice that a person is making. We can argue about alcohol and drug addiction being an addiction and therefore not entirely the person's fault, but I don't think that's fair. You can't get addicted to something without choosing to consume it first. There is an element of choice there. And it is the person's responsibility to get help for their addiction, if they have one. Anyway, these are the people that, had they not chosen to engage in that unhealthy behaviour, would not be using health resources they are otherwise using. Being fat, however, is not a choice. Even people who lead unhealthy lifestyles and are fat, do not choose to be fat (generally. there are some exceptions). To say that medical resources are being wasted unnecessarily on a group of people who fit a mould that is very often beyond their control, is unfair. And subsidising gastric bypass surgery is a waste of time, because if those fat people are unhealthy, they will continue to be unhealthy after the surgery. What should really be subsidised is education on how to be healthier, for the fat and thin people of this world.

In other, much happier news, I have a new outfit!



And another pose:



Yeah, I need better lighting. And a better, or at least cleaner, mirror.

Anyway, so this outfit came about because I saw these leg covers at a store near by place of habitation, and decided that they were great and that I would get them. I then considered what I could wear them with. The long shirt and pullover shrug thing both came from YoursClothing.com, and the stockings are generic, have holes in them, and are too small for me. I liked the idea of showing off more of the shape, at least, of my upper legs. I'm quite fond of my legs, shape-wise. I think they're nice. So I think this outfit is good for that. I also quite liked how it's a bit different. It needs more colour, certainly, but I like how it's different to the standard shirt/trousers combo. It's a definite keeper, I think.

Peace out, y'all.