it's in the water.

i seem to be surrounded by pregnant women lately. glowing, ebullient, beautiful pregnant women of all shapes and sizes. i know there are many pregnant women who spend the entire nine months hating their bodies and the changes it goes through, but what i've heard most lately is how so many of these women feel like they've been let out of body image jail for nine months. guns-a-blazin', they eat without feeling guilty, they don't punish themselves with excessive exercise, they don't feel like they have to hold their stomach in because, sister, there just ain't no holding it in.

i once had an older woman friend say to me (a woman on Weight Watchers), "when i was pregnant, i just ate whatever i wanted when i was hungry and i stopped when i was full, and i didn't really gain much weight. i wish i could eat that way now."

"why can't you?" i asked her.

"well... i mean. i just can't."

that broke my heart.

we actually can.

and it's probably one of the healthiest things we can do for our bodies, our minds, and our children. maybe we grew up in a diet culture, and got our ability to intuitively feed ourselves ripped out of our tiny, little hands like a forbidden cupcake. maybe we grew up believing that love is conditional with one of the conditions being that we be thin and beautiful. that doesn't mean our children have to. we must educate them. we must empower them by letting them make food choices. most importantly, we must love them unconditionally and be a good role model. we can't just talk the talk; we have to walk the walk. feed ourselves. enjoy ourselves.

they are watching.

even if we don't have children and never will.

they are still watching.

nieces, nephews, friends' children, students.

you don't think those 13-year old girls trying on Valentine's Dance dresses in the next room heard you bemoan the size and texture of thighs? you're wrong.

children of the world aside, what about you? what about me?

i have decided:

i will not wait until i am pregnant to eat without feeling guilty.

i will not wait until i am pregnant to not punish myself with excessive exercise.

i will not wait until i am pregnant to not feel like i have to hold my stomach in all the time.

i will not wait until i am pregnant before i start letting others take care of me.

i will not wait until i am pregnant to take care of myself.

i will not wait until i am pregnant to love myself.

i might not be birthing a child in nine months, but there is one inside me all the same.

she is watching.


if you've been pregnant, did you experience freedom from body image angst during those nine months? did that carryover at all into your life once you gave birth?

if you haven't been pregnant, are you scared of the changes your body will go through or can you not wait?

"I am having to come to terms with the fact that at age 41, I found myself unraveling. Or, rather, I unraveled."

the above quote from singer/songwriter juliana hatfield's blog post about her decision to finally go for ED treatment after years of silently struggling. read it here.

here's wishing her well. thank god she has a friend who could speak honestly with her, the cojones to admit herself, and the sense of hope that will see her through what is a bumpy journey through darkness to light. to get well is the brave choice.



i remember singing this song at the top of my lungs driving down perimeter road, valdosta, georgia, summer 1998.

the thin line between self-preservation and self-destruction

ladies and gentleman, this is r.

r, these are the ladies and gentlemen who read my blog.

i'd been talking about wanting to invite folks to serve as contributors on my blog from time to time (navel-gazing gets old, wouldn't you agree?), and r volunteered.

"perfect!" i thought. "she's a helluva good writer AND was a screwy eater for years!"

r and i have been friends since her freshman year and my junior year in college. we were roommates for one year during which i think i can go so far as to say that r subsisted on Baked Lays, Diet Coke, and midnight runs, while i subsisted on Hamburger Helper (with extra cheese), regular Coke, and as an avid devotee of the Couch PotaTaoism Anti-Movement. r has struggled with her fair share of ED and body image issues, and she, after years of work and ups and downs, has finally come to a place of peace about it all. doesn't mean she still doesn't get pissed however when she sees unhealthy diet advice in the media.

1.) DON'T APOLOGIZE FOR SELF-PRESERVATION.
I told Jillian that some of my habits--flushing rice down the toilet so I won't eat it, bringing my own high-fiber bread to brunch--stirred some controversy on the blog. "Why?" she asked. "Why should we apologize for the practices that help us manage the symptoms while we deal with the real reasons we eat? I pour candle wax on my food at restaurants," Jillian admitted. "Not wanting to 'waste food' is a poor excuse for ending up far worse off later on, dealing with all the health problems that come with obesity."

I just stumbled on this blog by Margarita Bertsos called "Margarita Shapes Up," though most of the posts seem pretty fixated on weight loss only. It's for Glamour magazine, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the weight-obsession.

This particular blog post centered on her meeting Jillian Michaels, one of the trainers from the reality show, "The Biggest Loser." If you don't know the show, it follows two teams of overweight "contestants" as they, as far as I can tell, go to extreme measures to lose enormous amounts of weight in an effort to be healthier and, of course, win a bunch of money. I confess I am both fascinated and repelled by the show- it's like what I imagine a "fat camp" to be like, yet I can't help but beam along with them each week as they (humiliatingly) step on this ginormous scale and find out they've lost 10 pounds in a week. Right. Healthy.

Anyway, this first tip shocked me. This is the kind of behavior, and justification of such, I used not only when I was in the thick of my "recovery" from anorexia, but also numerous times in my life when my disordered eating patterns were slithering back into place. Actually, I remember reading an article about some celebrity who said she dumped the contents of the salt shaker (servers LOVE her) on a dessert after a couple of bites so she wouldn't be tempted to eat more, and a lightbulb went off in my head- "why have I never thought of that?!?!" Of course, the magazine praised her discipline and ingenuity, much as Ms. Michaels does to Ms. Bertsos.

I love the seemingly sound reasoning here: "manage the symptoms while dealing with the real reasons we eat." While Ms. Michaels might be self-evolved enough to be dealing with the reasons she eats, the truth is most of us are not interested in why we binge, or starve, or purge. That's too hard, too painful, too intensive. No, we want someone to tell us how to get and stay skinny, and flushing food or pouring candle wax on our food in order to stop eating before we are truly satiated sounds like a pretty thorough way to do so. Much more final than say, throwing it in the garbage where it can be retrieved because YOU WEREN'T FINISHED, but felt guilty/ashamed/embarrassed for eating whatever it was. Yes, I have.

This is preservation, all right. It's maintaining the same sort of state of mind that focuses on what it looks like when you eat all the fries, order your own damn dessert, choose a salad when you really want the fish and chips. Cause if you say, "screw it, I'm eating what I really want this meal," you just might find yourself not worrying about exactly when to tip that candle over your plate. Might just find yourself not obsessing about your food AT ALL. That's a state worth preserving.

what do you think of jillian's advice?

and thank goodness for that.

i was thinking about the trials and tribulations one goes through throughout one's life, and how, as you heal, you can usually find yourself laughing at circumstances (at some aspect at least) that were awful, horrible and miserable at the time. this riff on a popular adage came to mind:

that which does not kill us makes us stronger; and that which does not kill us will eventually make us laugh.

Patient Voices: Eating Disorders

Barney Taxel for The New York Times, Darren Hauck/New York Times, Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times, Ruth Fremson/The New York Times, Stuart Isett for The New York Times, Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

haven't had a chance to read this yet, but a co-worker pointed it out to me, and i immediately wanted to share it with you. a multimedia package on The New York Times website called Patient Voices: Eating Disorders featuring "eight men, women and children (who) tell of their struggles with anorexia, bulimia and other forms of eating disorders." there's also a discussion board if you wanna get in on the conversation.

click here to check it out.

i'd be interested to hear your thoughts. i'll let you know mine once i listen and read.

parlez-vous fat talk?

this week, october 13-17 is Fat Talk Free Week. that's right! NO FAT TALK. can you do it?

NO "oh my god, i'm so fat."

NO "oh my god, she's so fat."

NO "oh my god, what size are you?"

NO "oh my god, i'm doing The Zone/Atkins/Master Cleanse this week."

NO "oh my god, i haven't worked out this week. I feel HUGE."

you get the picture.

in junior high, if we'd tried this, my group of friends would have sat in silence for a full week. what else to discuss?

it's the sorority Tri-Delta that is responsible for introducing FTFW as well as for co-creating a wonderful body image intervention program called Reflections. i'm going to resist making a sorority girl joke because these women have done wonderful thing.

(what's a sorority girl's mating call? oh my god, i am SO DRUNK!)

turns out i couldn't resist. sorry.

check out this video, sign the pledge to abstain from Fat Talk and then forward the video to your friends. you can also sign up to receive a Daily Challenge every day this week. they also have this bold T-shirt for sale. i think i need it.

here's Monday's challenge:

Your Daily Challenge for October 13: The next time someone gives you a compliment, rather than objecting ("No, I'm so fat!"), practice taking a deep breath and saying, "Thank you."

i still struggle with that one. just ask The Cute. luckily, he gives me plenty of opportunities to practice.

( :

Bomb Locamotive Palin - that's me!

and just for fun:

http://www.politsk.blogspot.com/

computer (and me) meltdown

me, tyler, ethan and maddie

hi, gorgeous people!!!

i'll be back shortly. i went to michigan to visit my 'rents and my brother and his family all last week only to return to work yesterday to find that my hard drive has been almost completely wiped out in my absence.

what fucking FUN!!!

my point is, i am busy trying to rebuild my work life (what did we do before computers?), but i shall return once things get back to wee bit normal. forgive moi.

here's a silly question to ponder... if you were to die, and they were going to cast your most "you" body part in bronze to memorialize you, what would it be?

me? my nose. unmistakably me. or my calves. terrifyingly muscular and sinewy. genetics.

on my soapbox

getty images

The Cute sent me this article "6 Food Mistakes Parents Make" from The New York Times this afternoon.

read it, please.

fascinating and informative reading whether you have kids or not. it certainly made me think about how i was raised re' food. i was always invited into the kitchen to help cook - this i credit with making me a pretty adventurous omnivore - but i was certainly pressured to eat or not to eat certain foods because they were either "good" or "bad" - and don't think i don't see the connection between those "bad" foods and the foods i later restricted or binged upon.

the article also made me think about how i might raise my own children - i know it's not a popular parenting view, but i don't plan on forbidding any food in my house. nothing. nada. that's the one part of the article i disagree with.

Other studies show that children whose food is highly restricted at home are far more likely to binge when they have access to forbidden foods.

The lesson for parents? Don’t bring foods that you feel the need to restrict into the house. Instead, buy healthful snacks and give children free access to the food cabinets.

aren't those two statements somewhat contradictory? if you don't allow certain foods into your home, they're restricted, and when that child encounters them outside of your home, they're likely to inhale them.

case in point: my friend A. we were friends since the 5th grade. her dad was the manager of a small grocery store in our town, so her kitchen cabinets were always full of a wide variety of "good" and "bad" foods including Little Debbie cakes, sugary cereals and storebought cookies. i never once saw or heard her mother tell her she couldn't have this or that food. the cabinets and the fridge were open to her at any time. she could have anything. she could eat pepperoni and Cheez-Whiz between two Chips-Ahoy for breakfast if she wanted to. i know. how awful! how dare her mother not watch over her diet like a hawk? well, wanna know what A's favorite food was? salad. wanna know what granola-and-fruit-juice-fed-me gorged on when i went over there to visit? i'm sure i don't have to tell you (although i'm sure i reaked of Oatmeal Cream Pies for days afterwards).

why restrict any food (and i'm not talking about children with diabetes or a similar issue)? just like adults, i truly believe that if you give a child a wide variety of foods to choose from, broccoli to brownies, and let them listen to their body and their hunger, they will make reasonable choices. don't believe me? watch a toddler with an ice cream cone. they don't have to finish it. they get full. they stop without being forced to. yes, some of us might have a greater propensity to develop eating problems, but i do believe, for the most part, that we really do learn disordered eating (this isn't my theory. smarter folks than i have studied it, written about it, practiced it. check out Preventing Childhood Eating Problems. i actually used its simple tenets in my own recovery).

anyway, i ramble. i also say all of this not having had children yet, so i know there might be a litany of "i told you sos" coming my way when i have my own little bean and all she wants to eat are those victuals that fall under the BEIGE food group. i can see myself now, paying her in Polly Pockets accessories just to PLEASE eat something, anything GREEN.

i was thrilled to see this as the 5th food mistake. thrilled, because people need to see this in print. i'm hoping that those who don't believe me when i say it, will believe The New York Times. they're like, way totally smarter than me:

Dieting in front of your children
Kids are tuned into their parents’ eating preferences and are far more likely to try foods if they see their mother or father eating them. A Rutgers study of parent and child food preferences found that preschoolers tended to like or reject the same fruits and vegetables their parents liked or didn’t like. And other research has shown girls are more likely to be picky eaters if their mothers don’t like vegetables.

Given this powerful effect, parents who are trying to lose weight should be aware of how their dieting habits can influence a child’s perceptions about food and healthful eating. In one study of 5-year-old girls, one child noted that dieting involved drinking chocolate milkshakes — her mother was using Slim-Fast drinks. Another child said dieting meant “you fix food but you don’t eat it.”

A 2005 report in the journal Health Psychology found that mothers who were preoccupied with their weight and eating were more likely to restrict foods for their daughters or encourage them to lose weight. Daughters of dieters were also more likely to try diets as well. The problem is, restrictive diets don’t work for most people and often lead to binge eating and weight gain. By exposing young children to erratic dieting habits, parents may be putting them at risk for eating disorders or a lifetime of chronic dieting. “Most mothers don’t think their kids are soaking up this information, but they are,” Dr. Birch said. “They’re teaching it to their daughters even though it doesn’t work for them.

do you remember your parents' dieting? do you think it affected your own attitude towards food and dieting? how? i'm interested to hear your thoughts.

wondering...

when did "you're practically disappearing" become a compliment?

dis·ap·pear /ˌdɪsəˈpɪər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[dis-uh-peer]

1. to cease to be seen; vanish from sight.

2. to cease to exist or be known; pass away; end gradually: One by one the symptoms disappeared.

i overheard it said to someone on the elevator this afternoon, and it struck me as so sad that it could ever be considered a compliment, and yet it was definitely meant to be in this case, and the recipient certainly ruffled a bit with pride.

apartment-sitting beats babysitting.

i don't know what's going on with me, but i know that all i want to do these days is cook for myself (this mainly means chopping vegetables to make this salad) and watch bad television (Whose Wedding is This Anyway? or Clean House anyone?). rather than freaking out and assuming that i have lost all ambition and will fade away into creative oblivion, i'm trying trying trying to just enjoy a little vacation away from my super-productive, list-making self.

we have to do that sometimes, yes?

it helps that i'm staying in the fabulous apartment of my dear friend J, who is away on safari for two weeks with his partner T. poor dears. i'm taking full advantage of the fully-equipped open kitchen, central air-conditioning and cable television. they didn't want to leave the apartment empty for that long so really, i'm doing them a favor. how will they ever repay me?

angry friday

have you seen this shit? just the name pisses me off. made by Bliss Spa, i saw it yesterday when i was in Sephora, doing what every other woman was doing in there: preparing for a Thursday night out using free expensive makeup.

i literally gasped when i saw this on the shelves.

the blurb on the back of the FatGirlSleep is what really got my goat:

Get a full night's 'booty' sleep with this supercharged sister to our famed FatGirlSlim. Formulated with our encapsulated slenderiZZZe complex that releases dimple diminishers and soothing lavender for up to 6 hours, this ultra-rich cream helps make the most of your body's overnight restorative process. Good night, sleep 'tight' and don't let the bed 'blubs' bite.

"don't let the bed 'blubs' bite!!!" are you kidding?!?!?

and this comment from Susan, a FatGirlSleep user;

The emollient texture combined with the relaxing lavender scent sends me off to a dreamy sleep all the while working on my-well you know what.

"my-well you know what!"

your what? your vagina? oh no, you mean your CELLULITE because THAT is certainly a very, very dirty word right up there with STRETCH MARKS and LOVE HANDLES and BELLY BULGE.

i'm so happy i don't know Susan. i might punch her.

i don't have a problem with the cream per se. at certain times in my life, when i'm feeling less than toned and lovely, i might very well give this sort of cream a shot. i really don't care if it's all about the placebo effect. sometimes the placebo effect is worth the money, but please, don't call me FAT and don't talk to me like i'm an asshole.

bliss. blissfully ridiculous.

i don't want my work to have PMS though.

i'll be back. i'm busy conjurin' creativity.

in the meantime, read this post about 10 Ways to Infuse Your Work with Your Personality by Keri Smith if you're an artist... or just a human bean interested in living artistically, and aren't we all when it comes down to it? you can't fool me. we all still jones for that Crayola box of 64.

tip #8 i found incredibly useful since i am now in the process of sending out size ate postcards to local universities. it can often feel like such miserable, money-grubbing work. sure, making money and building a business are PARTS of it, but it's not It. i have something incredibly valuable and worthy to share when it comes to my show and my voice!

8. Don't promote to target your audience. By all means send things out into the world, but don't think in terms of "promoting to get work". Send stuff out because -you're proud of it, -you want to share something with the world, -it's fun to get mail, -to have good karma, -you want to spread your germs, -you like licking stamps. Try sending a postcard of something you made for fun, (i.e. directions on how to make a finger puppet). When thinking of subject matter for promotions look to your current life. If you deal with topics that are important to you a piece will have much more life to it.

it's all how you look at it, isn't it?

i read this last night, and it struck me, so i thought i'd share it with you:

Opportunity is nowhere. Opportunity is now here.

shift your perspective. sit in a different place in the company lunchroom. go commando when you usually wear granny panties. take a different route to work. try the fiddleferns on the menu. opportunities might present themselves through the teeny tiny cracks you couldn't see from where you've been sitting. sometimes it just takes a subtle movement. i mean, look what happens to the phrase above with one tiny tap on the spacebar.

suddenly the night sky opens up and stars tumble in.

i've been trying to do this lately. make tiny changes to shift my perspective eeeeever so slightly. i hate it. i resent it. i hate change. change is terrifying. change is excruciating. i hate change, but i also know that change is necessary. i think i also read somewhere, and i may have even posted about it on this blog already, but again... and i paraphrase, if you're not changing, you're dead. i hate change, but i hate the idea of being dead more. change is LIFE. best to get comfortable with it. or maybe it's best to get comfortable with being uncomfortable with change.

late bloomer... and that's just fine.

taking a bit of a summer breather, but shall return, but while i'm gone, a new site i've found that i'm loving: http://mistymawn.typepad.com/

i'm even considering going to a workshop she's co-presenting in Oaxaca in december. i'm asking the universe to help me find, create, receive the money needed to go. it would be the one and only true vacation i've ever taken (that didn't involve family and/or a wedding), and the workshop involves creating a personal artistic journal. i've been offered the opportunity to publish size ate the play, but i've resisted, feeling deep down that the size ate book that gets published needs to be something that is more of an experience that just a book. it will be very visual and engaging. it will contain personal and collaborative art work and activities to be completed by the reader. my show is not a typical one-woman show. it bounces around and is a veritable theatrical collage. the accompanying book that WILL EVENTUALLY GET PUBLISHED (positive thinking!) should be the same. anywho, my point in bringing this up is that i'm hoping this workshop would be the start of a size ate book and workbook to accompany the show. fingers crossed.

one quick thought: spent sunday afternoon with a dear friend of mine who just turned 29. folks were joking with her,

"oh, one more year, and it's all over!"

"what!?" i said with not a little pissiness. "the thirties are SO much better than the 20s. i like myself physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and intellectually now so much more than i did when i was in my 20s. you couldn't PAY me to go back."

and frankly, it only keeps getting better. by 80, i'll be about ready to bloom and bungee jump.

yes!

all of the pleasure, none of the environmental guilt.

click here.

wholeness

my friend laura sent me an online greeting card from Bone Sigh Arts today. i went to the website to check out the rest of the art and found this new print that struck a big ol' chord with me (click the pic for a better view).

here's how the little girl who is me feels today:

america the beautiful: the documentary

i went to see the new documentary by Darryl Roberts last night called America the Beautiful. it's a fascinating, terrifying, entertaining and educational look into America's obsession with beauty and the price we pay for that (if that seems like a broad description well, the scope of the movie is broad). what's even more fascinating is that the documentary is written, directed and produced by A GUY and funded by three other GUYS. i love that! he explains a little more about why he was drawn to making this movie on his blog.

anyway... GO SEE IT! it's opening in NYC tomorrow August 1 at Cinema Village, and will open in a number of other cities very soon. click here for listings.

see it because it's educational and entertaining (and if you can't feel comfy eating a 12 pound bucket of buttered popcorn while watching THIS film, when can you?), but also see it because the more people who go out NOW to see it, the more distribution the film will get, and then even more folks will get see it, and this film needs to be seen.

eye-opening.

thank you, darryl. i bet your mama's proud.

what i did last night

made this zucchini bread.

watched this remarkable video.



i highly recommend both.

napkins recommended to catch errant crumbs and tears.

could the jeans be higher-waisted?

all four of us girls greatly contributed to the depletion of the ozone layer with the creation of those hairdos (note the Diet 7up in hand).

looking at this picture makes me a wee sad, and it has nothing to do with the acid-washed denim, brick wall bangs or the Sun-In bleached hair - although all of that is bloody awful too.

this picture was taken about a year after my first flirtation with anorexia. by this time, i was seemingly well-adjusted, at a healthy weight and into my first year of high school. yet if cameras could freeze thoughts as well as images, and you could peel back the photo and peer into my mind, you'd see a mind graffiti'd with a litany of lamentations. SO UGLY. SO FAT. SO DUMB. SO UNPOPULAR. and yet, there i was... so pretty, so healthy, so smart, so popular, but completely unable to see it. blind to it. just about how a freshmen girl in high school is supposed to feel, i know, and i don't know that you can raise a daughter who won't ever experience a lick of self-hatred or self-doubt, but i just wish i could step into this picture, sidle up to 14-year old me, and whisper into her ear:

it gets better, beautiful girl, i promise.