What I Mean

I was dreary yesterday. I'm dreary often enough that I might not have noticed but I've been so happy to be home. I was getting used to that feeling. After awhile I realized that it was the after effects of writing my letter. I felt uncertain. Worried that I hadn't said things well enough. Imagining all manner of eye rolls and worse a passive lack of understanding. What I mean when I say that being fat is a political identity for me has to do with my experience of the polis. 
A friend of Mom's picked me up at the airport years ago. A few days later Mom told me that her friend had not thought much of me at first glace because of my weight. After talking with me on the way home she decided that I was a very intelligent and kind person. Mom was very happy because the friend had seen past my weight. I was pissed. I asked Mom why it was OK with her that someone (anyone) had made an assessment of me based on appearance, specifically my weight. She stuttered and stammered because she has the same assessment of fat people when she sees them. She's fat. Her mother was fat. Her mother made no apologies and thought dieting was stupid and unhealthy. She was on and off diets all her life and still thinks she's failing because she's fat. Some part of her is angry when people think anything bad about me but she believes that if I were thin it wouldn't happen. I bring it on myself.
I don't really care what people think, especially strangers. I cared more when I was younger. I know that when I was with thinner friends I harbored a thought that people would see me with them and know I wasn't like other fat people. Sigh.
Another friend told me a story about her father. He almost didn't hire the man who ultimately became his business partner and life long friend because he was fat.
Someone once told a friend of mine that she couldn't imagine having anything to talk to me about because I was fat.
In my letter I mentioned a woman on her show who seemed full of fat hatred. I didn't want to go into it too much and still don't because, honestly, I don't have the energy for people like that anymore. Sanctimonious. Full of certainty. Blind to their own bad faith. And most of all, unwilling. You can not talk about the health of fat people and hate them and think you are fair. You are not. You are not concerned with my own good. You're concerned with being right. You're a bully.
I do wish I could talk to Melissa and people like her about it all. She said she has an obsession with The Biggest Loser. Really broke my heart. And realistically, public people like that getting random e-mails. I mean. I just feel like I'm shouting into the void.
Today there is a new statue of Rosa Parks on one end of Washington and a Supreme Court talking about dismantling the voting rights act on the other end. It's all so important. When I talk about my political identity I imagine eyes glazing over.
So I was dreary. And I'm still a little dreary. But. As MHP's father used to write in her birthday cards. The struggle continues.  

Open Letter To MHP

Dear Melissa,
It's me, Tish.
First I should let you know that this is an open letter and I should say to people who may read me but not watch MHP, Melissa writes a lot of letters to a lot of people and reads them on her show. They're smart and fun and, well, you should watch.
I watched as you wiped off your makeup in solidarity with the Barefaced and Beautiful campaign and, in some way that I'm not quite clear on, as a response to National Eating Disorders week. The connection you make is about the sense that too many young women have of not being good enough. You look fabulous with or without make up. I agree that sometimes makeup is a mask and sometimes it's a fun way to play. I'm just not sure that taking off makeup speaks to the serious issue of eating disorders.
It would be interesting to know how many of the 81% of the 10 year-olds who are afraid of being fat are boys. The same question would apply to the hospitalizations for eating disorders. Makeup may be an issue for a percentage of boys but, again, it's tangential at best.
The show you did on the politics and profits of weight loss was discouraging for me because it began with the assumption that losing weight was desirable and healthy and the only positive choice. The slight deference paid to the idea that fat people shouldn't be demonized banged against the wall of fat hatred articulated by at least one of your guests. I am in complete agreement that food is political and race and class issues are an important part of that discussion but even on the set your usually very smart show the assumptions about fat people were brain numbing. Belly fat? Really?
I have this issue with so much of the lefty media I so enjoy. I'm all for organic, local food. I'm angry about GMOs. I'm nodding and agreeing and then someone starts talking about obesity.
Let me be clear about why that bothers me. I'm fat. For me being fat is a political identity. I am generationally fat. I do not need sympathy or support for being fat. It's a body type not an illness.  
I was a fat kid. It wasn't easy being a fat kid in the fifties but I am terrified for fat kinds today. They are being told that they have a disease. And there are thin kids who eat fast food and play video games. It's just as bad for them but no one seems worried about them. 
I have as much affection for Michele Obama as I can have for someone I don't actually know. But this rise in eating disorders and her articulation of the obesity epidemic are connected. Again, love the garden. Love the dancing. But don't thin kids need those things?
Can we please do some critical thinking about fat bodies? And health. And social justice. And beauty.
I also have as much affection for you as I can have for someone I don't actually know. I love the show. I just long for some different thinking, some deep wisdom and insight. These are the things I usually get from you.
Your biggest ( not a loser) fan.

Yeah. So.

I only just recently figured out how to choose the picture I want when I click on share-to-Facebook. It's not like it was hard. I don't always see all my options. I'm still ripping and listening to music. The shuffle changes with every new add. Today is heavy with Joni as expected. And I've been fooling around with the Food Blog.
I clung to my IPhone when I was in NC. I didn't actually do much telephoning but I was a social media freak. Facebook was the town square. Twitter, which I have never really understood how to use, was the minute to minute headline. There must be a way to post from one thing and not end up spamming Facebook.  If I share from Foursquare on Twitter, Facebook and Tumbler they all post to Facebook. If I'm home I go to Facebook and hide all but one but I couldn't do that with the phone. I've been trying to use Path more often but I forget about it. I seriously love the image of the moon that shows up when you "go to sleep"  but I forget to "wake up". Path doesn't always have the book I'm reading or the music I'm listening to, which bums me out. And it would be one pore post on Facebook.
I never update All Consuming anymore.  I just did because I was thinking about it but I doubt I'll remember to do it again. There was an option to add Netflix, which I did but I don't see it. I thought I had a Netflix "gadget" but I don't see that anymore. Why?
It's all so scatter shot.
And silly.
But fun.

Cleaning And Listening

I read The Summer Without Men on the flight home. It was a long flight and a longish layover in Atlanta so I had plenty of time. And it was the perfect size book for the amount of time I had. There were interesting echos of my current life in the book. The main character spends some time with her mother who lives in a retirement home. Someone dies and someone makes a comment about how that happens when people of a certain age get together. Yep.
She sublets a house and there's some fairly detailed writing about the cleaning she does as a way of nesting. I loved it. Cleaning is a way of taking possession of a space. My apartment wasn't dirty when I came home. In fact there was some obvious cleaning that had been done for which I was grateful. But things were just off. after two weeks I have things mostly back to the way I like them. I am surrounded by my plants and books and at my computer. Home.
For a few years I've been trying to come up with a way to have all my music in one easily playable place. I have a nice collection of CDs and a few cassettes. I haven't bought much new in years. Once when I was still working I bought a small stack of new discs and I have five or six new songs in my phone. I never listen to them any more. My disc player doesn't work. It has a five disc capacity but doesn't shuffle and makes a loud thunk between each disc. I didn't want to rip everything into my computer because I didn't think I had enough space. I decided to get an IPod classic because it had the most space. I decided but I didn't act on it. It's not a lot of money but it's a lot for me. Well I came home from Mom's and made my move. I thought I could put music in it and by pass the computer. I was wrong. If I'm not wrong someone needs to tell me how to do that. I was bummed at first but it turns out I have a fair amount of space on my computer. So far it's working out.
I sort of hate ear buds. Decades ago I bought tiny Radio Shack speakers for a Sony Walkman. They've been in my back room buried under junk. Really they're so old I didn't think they'd work at all and I didn't think they'd work with the IPod. But they do.
Mom puts MSNBC on first thing every morning and it's on all day. I watch a fair amount myself but I listen to more radio. MSNBC is so repetitive. It's hours and hours of opinion about some aspect of political news. I like a few of the shows. Mostly Rachel, Chris and MHP. Some times Ed covers labor issues. But all day is brain numbing.
So now I'm home. Have I mentioned that? And every day I add more music to the IPod. I listen to it with the little speakers. My shuffle goes from Lester Young to Oingo Boingo to Barry White to Verdi. I lean heavily toward singer song writers and rhythm and blues but I have a variety. Today I'm adding all the Joni. Should make for fun listening tomorrow. It's been a really positive thing. There may have been better ways to go about it but it's doing what I wanted it to do. Making it easier to listen to music. I'm not sure when that became hard. It used to be reflexive.
I'm one Harper's away from being caught up on three months of those and New Yorkers. I'm caught up on random television shows. I did write the food blog. I was fooling around with the template and now there's no way to share it to Facebook or Twitter embedded on the post. I don't know why. I wanted to use a picture Kristina took but I can't get it to be where I want it to be. I'll keep tweaking.
I haven't walked out of my apartment. Which has been good. Something I needed.
Stevie Wonder is singing.
Picture me smiling.  

The Invisible Gorrilla

I like having a baby in my life because babies grow. Babies become new people over and over. Maybe there are some hard wired characteristics but even they expand and contract. In the three months while I've been gone my not quite two year old neighbor has gone from just being able to walk without holding on to something to being able to go down the steps and dancing. Her language skills have developed. She's always been dexterous but even that skill has sharpened. Her personality has filled out. Deepened somehow.
In my twenties I used to take some kind of psychedelic once a year to reboot my thinking. I'm not sure if it really worked but it was interesting. And I moved around a lot. Being somewhere new made it possible to be someone new.
I have changed in the past few years but I'm not sure the changes have been useful. I've always processed emotionally by talking. I feel like I used to be someone who got calls. People called. To talk. That's just not true anymore. People are busy. I guess. And I find myself reticent to reach out. I'm not even sure why except I hate that feeling of needing to talk and hearing the busy-ness in someone's voice. I still love talking. I just don't seek it out or rely on it. I've been hurt and resentful about that but it was a habit that got broken. I think that part might be good.
I fully intended to come home and sink into a Sims coma. I was going to live on delivery and anything that did not need to be cooked. I have played a bit but I have little projects in the apartment that pull me out of the game. Reclamation projects. I don't mind being pulled out. I haven't cooked anything more than scrambled eggs.
Something feels looser.
I've been drawn to images of Buddha. I like the presence. The being-ness. The stillness.
Mom lives in a retirement community and someone, either there or one of her friends is always sick. There were several deaths while I was there. On her refrigeration door, in the middle of the frog magnets, is a Do Not Resuscitate order. It's a perfectly smart thing for an older woman who lives alone to have but it's unnerving. In my darker moments I have thought about having DNR as a tattoo. Being there, where the phone calls came in about who was in the hospital or the grave, made something real. In a way. Something about change being inevitable. Even when it feels impossible.
I used to think it was good that she was there with people in her age cohort. People with shared interests. Now I'm not sure. It seems imbalanced. It seems like there needs to be babies around.
I heard Jill Bolte Taylor on the radio the other day. She was describing an experiment in which people were told to watch kids passing a ball back and forth. At some point a gorilla walks across the screen and most, maybe all, of the people didn't see it. That's my big fear. Being so stuck in a habit that I don't see the gorilla.
When my goddaughter was growing up I noticed the changing. It continued all through her years in college. Every time she came home for a break she was someone new. Now in her twenties she is still changing.
And by change I mean growing. Developing. Casting off habit. Becoming.
There's something.
Something.    

    

Flying While Fat/ Home

Right before I left for my trip Barbara told me that she and her daughter were talking about flying and comfort. Barbara said that I might have to purchase two tickets and her daughter said that it was discrimination. I was comforted to hear that someone so young got it.
Two friend's were over for dinner and I mentioned it to them. They didn't believe me until I showed them the Delta policy. Delta does not "require" that a person purchase two seats but you may be asked to move to another seat if you are making a fellow passenger uncomfortable (humiliated) and if the flight is full you may be asked to take a later flight. They were drop jawed.
I am fortunate to have a mother who can afford two seats. My flights both going and coming were full so I might have been asked to take a later flight if I hadn't had them. In both flights the person in the third seat felt free to use my second seat for their belongings. I didn't actually need the room. Put me in a weird position. Should I have said get your stuff off of my seat? Eh. What. Ever. Also on both flights there were children and I couldn't help but thinking that one more person could have flown that day with some creative thinking.
So with the two seats I was no more or less comfortable than any other passenger. I can never sleep on a plane but I read my book. It was OK. And people were friendly and kind.
Money.
See now.
After these extended visits with Mom I feel as if I've been wearing clothes that are too tight. It's partly because of the bad psychology in our relationship but it's also about personalities and what a friend describes as a profound generation gap. I just become so focused on her and so repressed that I barely exist. After a few days being home I can feel the blood flowing back into my brain. And then there's a lot of processing and recovery. What ever the mechanic of having an adult relationship between adult child and parent may be, it is not one we seem to understand.
It's not terrible. I read a lot. She doesn't always make reading easy. If I read she talks.. But since I was at her house she'd get a paper and read that while I read a book.We worked on puzzles and watched all five seasons of Doc Martin, which she loved. Kristina sent us the first season of Dowton Abbey and I got the next two from Netflix. Yes. That's right. I've seen the entire third season. Wanna know what happens?
I cooked. I'm going to try and write about that on the food blog. Later.
When I have returned from a long trip in the past I always notice that my apartment smells like me. But this time  a friend of a friend stayed here for a few months. She left the windows cracked. It's not like I smell good and she smelled bad. But my apartment didn't smell like me. It was disorienting. Travel is disorienting. Being gone that long is disorienting. And something about the kinetic experience of my apartment not smelling like me was disorienting.
Disorientation can be useful. I don't even remember the old habits of living. I don't even remember the channels on the TV. Slowly some things are coming back. But I'm enjoying coming up with new ways of being in the day. I am doing lots of reclaiming.
It's Fat Tuesday.
I am home.  

Frogs

When I was a teen and embarrassed by the presence of my mother she and I were shopping a sale table at a hardware store. I was at one end and she was at the other. Two women standing next to me picked up a plastic frog and commented on how ugly it was. The mouth of the frog was wide open to hold soap and the feet were tucked forward to hold a sponge. My mom picked up the same frog, held it up and called out, "look at how cute this is!" I tried to pretend I didn't know her.
Some how that became the first frog in what is now an epic collection. She always says no more frogs but when she gets a new one she smiles like a child.
I've been posting a frog of the day photo on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. It's been fun.