Rambling thoughts spurred by the last post

Thank you, dear readers, for your responses to the last post. I appreciate them all. I want to respond to each one of you personally, for you all had something interesting and provocative to say. I know I'll be writing again about all the topics I touched on. Aging, self image, body image, control, insecurity, strength, acceptance. I could pick any of these topics and devote an entire blog to it. But since I contend that "everything is interesting" I won't be doing that. Speaking of single subject blogs, my second side blog is not being attended to. Again, I am keenly aware that I am in need of at least three lives. Perhaps they'll cure death before I die. Somehow, I doubt it.

When I re-read what I had written, I had to disagree with myself about one thing. I wrote that I had not gotten over some of my anorexic thinking, "not by a long shot." I still have remnants of anorexic thinking, to be sure, but I am over most of them. And I want to acknowledge that, not just for myself, and not just to set the record straight, but for anyone who is suffering from an eating disorder. Yes, one can get well.

What's left? I still am attracted to extremely thin people. I admit it. One part of me recoils in horror as another part of me is attracted. But at the same time, I have come to find all shapes and sizes attractive. Unfortunately, I do not extend that to myself, but most of the time I just do not notice. Another thing that is left is what is called "body dysmorphia." When I look in the mirror I see what I feel, not what is really there. These days, this is a positive thing. I like the person in that mirror. It's only when I have to try on some pants in a dressing room that I notice I'm not thin.

In the downscale stores, the dressing rooms are a horror. The designers of these torture chambers are idiotic. For one, turn the lighting down. The room should feel candlelit, slightly romantic and luxurious. I'm not the only person who feels drained and stressed out after leaving a dressing room. The last time I tried on some jeans, I left the dressing room with sweating palms, and much to my shame, a mess. I was shaking slightly. Victoria's Secret has great dressing rooms, but they don't sell minimizing bras, so I don't go there any more. Listen up, Kohl's, if you want your next quarter to be better, pimp out those dressing rooms.

Now that I've veered off course, I'll try to reign myself in. One commentor had mentioned that Annie Lennox looked like she had plastic surgery. I'm not so sure, but I'm no expert on this. Here's what she had to say to Reuter's:
"I still want to be an empowered performer, an empowered woman. I want women to see that and think, 'It's OK, she's got a few wrinkles and it's fine.' I don't have to lie about my age ... What's to be ashamed of? And what is so wrong about being older?"
Lennox is 54 years old. She's just put out an album. Personally, I'm not all that interested in hearing it, but it's great that she's still at it. Patti Smith is still at it, too. Now, I'm fairly certain that she hasn't had "work done."

I'm not posting these photos to be catty. These women have been role models to me, as I once was a performer trying to buck the beauty standard and just perform. Of course, sex appeal and charisma are a big part of being a popular musician, no matter how edgy one is. But, there are some women who have either not relied on their looks to carry them or who have had great fun playing with their adrogyny. Patti Smith and Annie Lennox are two of them. Others that I can think of (off the top of my head) are k.d.lang, Laurie Anderson, and Sinead O'Connor.

Patti Smith genuinely changed my life. I wasn't a fan of hers. She was too "pop" for my taste. But I had never seen her in person. I was a bit too young to have seen her at CBGB's, and saw her play at at fairly small venue just when her album "Horses" came out. There were balcony seats and I was in one of them, but not for long. I was mesmerized. There was a woman on stage who was not seducing the audience with her sex appeal. She was as intense as any performer I'd ever seen. She looked like an innocent waif girl and a young street boy at the same time. She howled. She stalked. She twirled. She was doing exactly what she wanted, at least in my eyes. It was a revelation. I wound up at the edge of the stage, barely breathing, transfixed.

That week I started playing guitar in a band. I didn't give a damn what I looked like and what others thought. Seeing Patti Smith gave me that strength. Me, a terribly shy kid, almost mute, who had absolutely no faith in herself, no self-esteem, almost complete self-hatred, somehow, miraculously, played my guts out on stage. I still don't understand it.

Tonight, I'm trying to cover too much ground. The last post brought up a lot for me. The comments, too, touched me. And so, I'll end it here, for now. To be continued. . .

Addendum: I wanted to mention that TMC posted "Strength, Part I", a mosaic of strong women. I'm looking forward to Part II (and more?)

Not myself

After I've finished reading something on BitterGrace Notes or Smells Like Boi, I often think I shouldn't write. Both bloggers are such beautiful writers. Truth be told - their skills intimidate me. Yet, I must remind myself that there are many different styles of writing and ways of expressing oneself.

I hesitate to say that I write the way I think. This may sound odd, but as I meditate more, I feel as if I don't think about things all that much. Until I put voice or word to any thoughts, the thoughts waft through my mind like fast moving clouds.

I allow myself to write stream of consciousness and it's rare that I edit (as if that weren't obvious). I once participated in a short writing workshop that turned out to be about how to turn off one's internal editor. I thought, "I haven't got one!" We were told to write something as fast as possible in ten minutes. I spewed out pages and pages of nonsense. This reminds me that I sent an editor two rough drafts way back in July and haven't heard a thing from him. It's damned impolite.

See? Those last two sentences weren't on topic. But I am loathe to change. I feel as if I'd be giving up something honest about myself if I did. I don't practice the art of writing. I'm just talking to myself and letting you in on it.

Oddly, this was supposed to be the introduction to a post on anorexia. Now that seems too sudden a shift. But is it really? My allowing myself to write just as I am is related to my allowing myself to accepting myself just as I am, isn't it?

Anorexia is the antithesis of being just as one is. It is the ultimate control. Those who haven't experienced it may think that a person who stops eating has lost control of themselves (or their minds). But, most people who have had anorexia report a deep sense of satisfaction at having mastered their appetite. It feels like a triumph.

When I had nothing in my refrigerator but bottles of sparkling water and wore a size 0 pair of pants, I felt unconquerable. I also sported a crewcut. At my thinnest, I shaved my head clean. The androgyny made me feel powerful, too. Even at 5'1", I could pass for a young man and often did. Seeing my bones through my skin looked beautiful to me. I loved my sharp hip bones and the way slinky fabrics draped over them. Never mind that I had so little padding that I got bruises on those hipbones all the time and it hurt to sit on my bony backside. I felt like the master of my little universe.

Once a week I would meet with another anorexic friend and we would go to TCBY to eat frozen yogurt. It was our big, naughty treat. She was stricter than I, for she'd get the yogurt with the imitation sugar in it. I never would use that stuff. In the midst of slowing killing myself, I cared about not putting fake sugar in my body!

I didn't think I was killing myself. Not in the least. I have never believed that there was such a thing as "denial." I always thought that if a person was in the grips of an addiction or a behavior that was bad for them, they knew it. They just didn't want to or weren't able to stop. I was wrong. I had no idea that I was anorexic. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked gorgeous; like a model! I was photogenic for the first time in my life. A friend took a picture of me when I had bleached my hair. I looked a bit like David Bowie. It astounded me. Here I was, a woman who had always been plump, who had been teased for being fat and being busty when I was in elementary school, and I looked like a model or a rock star. Finally!

What I didn't know is that my doctor was planning on doing an intervention on me if I didn't stop losing weight. She was constantly encouraging me to gain a few pounds. I thought she was nuts. Me? I needed to gain weight? I'm not too thin! It was impossible for me to believe.

The intervention never happened, for I did start gaining weight. My love of food finally got to me. See? Even now, I couch the end of my anorexia with a phrase that implies that the end of being thin was something bad. I'll write it again: my love of food finally got to me. You see, a part of me still longs to be that thin. Maybe not that thin, but thin enough not to think I look like crap from the side or feel that I must wear a high turtleneck to cover my double chin. No, I'm not over this by a long shot.

I agree with my whole being when I read about being a "ferocious crone" on BitterGrace's blog. Yet, these demons still haunt me when I'm struggling to get into a pair of jeans or look at a photograph of myself. Other times, I must admit, I look in the mirror and just see me, a person whom I like.

Photo note: Somehow it seems unfair to Annie Lennox to put her face at the top of this post. I searched, in vain, for a painting that spoke to me. Then I typed the word "adrogyny" into Google, found this photo, so lovely, and said "this is it." No, Annie Lennox didn't have anorexia, as far as I know. She had a beautiful, shapely body. I thought the contrast of her womanly form and her adrogynous style was "to die for" (though I've never uttered those words in my life). In order to be more like her, and less like myself, I starved myself. No, not to be Annie Lennox exactly, but she was my ideal. She is gorgeous. And she is gorgeous still. I will find a recent photo of her to post, but not tonight. Tonight, I am done.

A bad message a day?

I think they were always there but I wasn't paying as much attention. It seems that every time I open a magazine or surf the Web I find yet another bad message. You may be thinking, "Only one?" And if you are, I'd say the question is a good one, for there are bad messages about women's bodies everywhere. And I'm sure that there's plenty of bad messages for men, too, but I haven't started noticing them yet. Just wait. I'm sure I will find them soon.

Earlier this evening I saw a banner ad for some sort of eye cream that showed a before and after shot of a woman's eye. In photo number one the undereye was puffy, creped and discolored, the lid drooping and the crow's feet deep. The after photo was perfect. Sorry folks, but without surgery (and Photoshop) this is impossible. But besides the blatant absurdity of thinking that any beauty product could produce those results (and that it was the same person's eye), the before shot was amateurishly doctored. It looked like someone had applied heavy foundation makeup under the eye and then took a hot blowdryer to it, causing it to cake and bits to fall off. You'd think it would be the lovely after shot that would look fake, but no, I suppose whoever put this sad ad campaign together assumed we wouldn't look at that awful eye for too long. What's sadder is that someone out there is buying that product.

A few hours later, this popped up in yet another banner ad:

"My wrinkles were getting worse and I felt embarassed and ashamed."

Now, you tell me why anyone would be embarassed or ashamed about wrinkles. I certainly can understand feeling poorly about watching one's face age, even as I wish that weren't so. But ashamed and embarassed? That would mean that someone had done something wrong to create the wrinkles. Is this imaginary woman feeling guilty that she hadn't used the correct creams? Maybe she'd never washed her face in her life. That must be it. Otherwise, what's there to feel ashamed by?

All kidding aside, I know that I wouldn't have these fine lines around my lips if I hadn't been a smoker, or at least they may have been put off by some more years. But still, I am not ashamed or embarassed. I have been noticing them more, and part of me thinks it isn't so much about my past smoking as my habit of pursing my lips and this certain face I make when I look in the mirror. Years and years ago, a friend pointed this out to me. When I look in the mirror, I suck in my cheeks slightly, tuck my chin in a bit, lower my eyelids and turn up the edges of my mouth. I used to try on hats on my lunchbreak years ago when I worked in midtown Manhattan. I am a bit sorry that girl pointed out this odd habit of mine, for I've been aware of it ever since (and the habit could never be broken).

Why did I do it? I probably noticed that many models hold their heads like that. I also never had any discernable cheekbones and tilting my head foreward helps create a shadow under my chin, which is very small.

Should I be ashamed and embarassed by my weak chin and lack of cheekbones? Maybe I should be. I ought to have saved the money to get plastic surgery, right? I mean, in this society, from what I gather, I'm remiss in not doing everything I can to look like the beauty standard and keep myself from looking old. If I don't, I'm not complying.

If I don't, I may even be causing others grief. Years ago, when Clinton was in office, I knew a man who groaned every time he saw Janet Reno on TV. It wasn't because he thought anything bad about her politically. It was because she was "old and ugly." He was offended that he was obliged to look at her when he watched the news. And good ol' Rush Limbaugh would probably agree with this point of view. After all, one of his reasons for not wanting Hillary Clinton to win was totally apolitical. He said he didn't want to be forced to watch a woman age in public. What a horror show!

Ideas like those above cause me to envision a dystopian future in which women will be socially ostracized for not having plastic surgery or having to cloister themselves away after they've passed their youthful "prime."

There is irony here. That glass ceiling may have been shattered in 18,000 pieces (or whatever number Clinton named), but the tyranny of the beauty standard seems to be getting worse. Or perhaps, now that my youth is gone, I am just noticing it more.

But, I think not.

Image note: Quentin Matsys' "Grotesque Old Woman", a painting I have always disliked immensely.

Awful messages (a continuing series, it seems)

There's much I could write about. I notice that what I'm really thinking is that there's much I should write about. I hesitate to use expressions such as this, but, I tend to believe in the AA aphorism "don't should on yourself."

When we got home, there was a copy of Harper's Bazaar magazine in our stack of mail. It's huge. 408 pages. Two perfume inserts (both awful). Hundreds of pages of ads. Many of the models are downright scary looking. Not because they are so thin, which they are, but they stare at the camera with menacing looks that would put any death metal musician to shame.

I'm enjoying leafing through the magazine. I enjoy fashion. I also enjoy being irked. Seriously. I have come to realize that I enjoy feeling outraged, as long as it is not that serious. Being outraged by anorexia amongst fashion models is not the same as being outraged by genocide. It seems a little ridiculous to bother pointing this out.

I know I'm only supposed to look at the pictures, but I do read the copy. Here's what stuck in my craw: "We've all been there: arriving at some haute soiree positively preening over our pitch-perfect ensemble only to see her. That girl. . .Suddenly, you want to burn a cigarette into your coat. . .and lose 10 pounds in 10 minutes. . ."

Do I even need to comment?

No, I think not.

Image note: Forget about the dress. What does this mean?

Addendum: I am thinking of keeping the subscription so I have something trivial to be irritated by. The television is on right now. I hear ". . .more bad news is expected next week." More about the connection between the above to come.

Addendum II: Victor & Rolf's "Flowerbomb" perfume may actually be nice. It's nowhere near being a bomb of flowers. But, I've always wondered if those fragrance strips are accurate.

"Never had my nails done. . ."

I'm coming late to this game. Lady Sovereign's "Love Me Or Hate Me" came out in 2006.

Not brilliant, no, but I gotta love this:

"I'm fat, I need a diet.
No, in fact I'm just too light
And I ain't got the biggest breast-s-s, but I write all the best disses.
I got hairy armpits, but I don't walk around like this.
I wear a big baggy t-shirt that hides that nasty shit.
Ugh!
Never had my nails done.
Bite them down until they're numb.
I'm the one with the non-existent bum,
Now I don't really give a....Ugh!
I'm missing my shepherd's pie
Like a high maintenance chick missin' her diamonds.
I'm missin' my clippers lighters.
Now bow down to your royal highness.
No I don't own a corgi,
Had a hamster, it died cause I ignored it.
Go on then, go on report me,
I'm English, try and deport me!"

Thanks, TMC, for the Lady Sovereign tip. Check out this week's Sing-Along Thursday with "A Little Bit of Shh" over at Return to Rural.

One more reason I don't like celebrity scents (with long afterthought about aging)

I haven't tried Dianne Brill's perfume. I just received a sample. Here's the thing: I don't want to like it. Isn't that awful?

Reason #1. Just read the first sentence of the ad copy:

Diane Brill's lifetime up to this moment provides the inspiration for her signature fragrance.

I am not a stickler about the English language, but honestly, with all the money that goes into developing perfumes and cosmetics, don't you think that this opening salvo could have been better written?

It's such a badly written sentence. I don't know why it sticks in my craw so much. It's causing all sorts of snarky responses in me. What if they left out "up to this moment"? Thus; Diane Brill's lifetime provides the inspiration for her signature fragrance. That's a perfectly good sentence. I suppose it sounds like she's dead. Ah. That's why someone threw that "up to this moment" bit in there. I see it now.

Okay. I'll let that one slide.

But wait, here's sentence #3: Dianne Brill's Perfume is the essence of Ms. Brill's philsophy, which is to deliver a feeling.

This stuff reads like the bad English put out by Japanese companies. Ms. Brill's company is not in this category. What's up with their writers?

As to that philosophy, yeah, I agree. It's really good to want to deliver a feeling. What feeling exactly are we talking about? I suppose it doesn't matter.

Oh sorry. There is a next line, so the question will be answered.

The feeling that you get when you open a present of lingerie, jewelry or exquisite bonbons.

That was it. What feeling is that? It depends, doesn't it? If someone gave me one of those S-shaped diamond necklaces, I'd be speechless and stupefied. Well, that's not exactly a feeling, is it? What if a stranger gave me a diamond engagement ring? I might be scared. If I received a gift of lingerie from a relative, I'd be shocked. Bonbons? Does anyone give bonbons as a gift? Well, I like those Lindt chocolates with hazelnuts inside. I suppose they are bonbons, so if I got some of those, I'd be pleased.

Ms. Brill, am I to believe I will feel all the emotions of a lifetime by wearing your perfume. That is what you mean, right?

Somehow, I think not.

Dianne Brill was the nightlife queen in the early 80's club scene. I remember liking her some, only because she wasn't thin and seemed to be totally okay with that. I was rather saddened to see, that on her website, she gave up being an proud big woman a while back.

I will try the perfume. Oh, how I want to hate it!

Photo note: Diane Brill and Elvira
Bobby Sheehan, 1977-82 (unspecified)

Addendum: I felt a bit disturbed after posting this. It was the photograph that created this uneasy (queasy?) feeling that I have. The black and white photograph above reminds me how innocent "we" were thirty or so years ago. Elvira was someone who was fake. Look at her, how truly fake she is. It's a fun fake, like Dianne Brill or Amy Winehouse's bouffants. And Diane B. back then? Honestly, I love her weight. She looks like a real person, all dressed up and having fun.

Go over to Dianne Brill's website (link above) and look at the photographs of her today. Oh, sure, she "looks good." No, I'll disagree with that statement. It's creepy for someone to look younger at middle-age than they did when they were twenty-something.

Last night, I watched the original CSI for the first time in at least a year. The woman who plays Katherine, whatever her name is, looks younger than when the show started. I watched her forehead during the entire episode. Did it move? Not really. Botox strikes again. So much for having models of good looking older women.

When I was a teenager and my mother started her flipping-out-over-I'm getting-old-and-undesirable phase, watching the changes in her were upsetting. I thought I was just a selfish little brat, wanting my mom to stay the same. In retrospect, I think there is some of that in there, but there was a larger issue. I wanted to see her grow old gracefully, for then I'd know I could do it too. I would have also been less worried about her mental state, but that's another story. I basically missed the last year of my mother's life because of her face lift. She didn't want me to see her until she was all healed.

I kid around about how I'd like to get a chin job, a neck resurfacing, a bit of surgery on my lower belly (and if I think about it, a whole host of other places). Heck, I don't have kids. Why should I be a decent role model? But why should I care at all? This is my body. It's falling apart, both on the outside and the inside. Gravity takes it course, as it should. My grandmother's boobs hung so low that they rested on the top of her apron waistband. That was what grandmothers looked like in my mind. There was something almost reassuring about it.

Why do we have to look perpetually young? Greater minds than I have asked that. I've read about this subject in so many places, yet not one person has written about why the youth standard has become so imperative right now. Maybe it's those aging baby boomers. They were in love with their youth and don't want to give it up. I think that may be part of it, but it certainly isn't the whole thing.

I want to admire old crones, women with creped skin and white hair. Why should any of us spend our whole lives worrying about what we look like?

It's odd. I didn't think I'd be someone susceptible to this. I never thought I was attractive and certainly didn't use my looks, such as they were, to any advantage. Youth was never an advantage to me, anyway. I "suffered" from the opposite problem of many. I actually looked too young for a good amount of my adult life. It was hard to get people to take me seriously. I looked like I was a high school student until I was in my late thirties.

What is the standard? It's Miss America, still, after all these years. That age is neither too young nor too old. Let's call it the perpetual 29. That sounds about right.

Not exactly the entry I meant to write about body image

We hear on the news that this is an "obese nation", but consider these statistics:

25% of American men and 45% of American women are on a diet on any given day.

81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat.

The average American woman is 5’4” tall and weighs 140 pounds. The average American model is 5’11” tall and weighs 117 pounds.

"In the United States, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. . .many individuals struggle with body dissatisfaction and sub-clinical disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. . . it has been shown that 80% of American women are dissatisfied with their appearance". NationalEatingDisorders.org

This past weekend, when I was at a meditation retreat, I noticed something that I've experienced before: I did not feel "fat". Now, on Friday morning I felt fat. But after two hours of meditation, I noticed I felt perfectly fine in my body, and about my body. Sure, I could use more exercise. I'm out of shape. I am overweight, but it's not life-threatening. Most people would not call me obese (though those weight charts say that I am). They'd say I'm plump, if they said anything at all. If I lived in New York City, maybe I'd be considered significantly overweight, but where I live, I'm probably about average.

So, I've got some some conflicting external standards. Weight charts that say I'm very fat, a local culture that says I'm okay, a beauty culture that says I'm too short (and Oprah magazine says a person of my height should always wear heels, like I'm going to do that here in the countryside), magazines that show me that I should consider all sorts of surgery, expensive underwear that'll mold my flesh into the right forms, and myself, who completely rejects judging people by their exterior but looks in the mirror and says "ugh".

The ever-shifting nature of how I feel about myself is the piece that interests me. When I feel good about myself, I feel fine about how I look. Having it the other way around, feeling good about how I look determining how I feel about myself, well, that's the road to ruin. Silly concepts like "having a bad hair day" actually do make people unhappy. Sure, it may feel nice having a great hair style and some good clothes on over a thin body, but this is not who we really are. Someone must have told you when you were young, "It's who you are on the inside that counts". Well, I have heard that, but I never believed it. But I do believe that you're as pretty as you feel. This is indeed true.

I once was anorexic. It started out benignly. I went to Weight Watchers, a most sensible program, where I set out to lose 31 pounds. At first I thought the goal weight they gave me was absurdly low, but when I hit it, I didn't feel thin. I stopped going to meetings and started eating less and less until I was down to living on one cup of ramen noodles a day and lots of diet Coke. My refrigerator and cupboards were totally empty. Here I was, a person who once loved to cook and truly loves food, not junk food, but good food, and I felt like I had conquered appetite. I became terribly skinny and I loved how I looked. I could finally stand naked in front of a mirror and say "you're gorgeous". I finally let friends and family take photos of me. And in them, this short woman was so thin, I looked like a model.

What I didn't know is that my doctor was worried. She suggested that I gain seven pounds. It was an odd number and I have no idea where she got it from. I couldn't believe that anyone thought I might be too skinny. I was always overweight. I was teased in elementary school; called "fatso" by some boys every day at the bus stop. Now, people were asking me to eat more! How absurd.

I found out years later that if I hadn't put on seven pounds, my doctor was going to do an intervention and put me in the hospital.

I could never see what I looked like. I thought I was ugly when I was young and I had no reason to think otherwise. I got messages from a lot of important people in my life that I was not good looking. I was told to develop an "interesting personality" to make up for my lack of good looks. What a message to tell a kid! But even if I hadn't gotten these bad messages, I would have picked them up just by turning on the TV or opening a magazine. But, unfortunately, I had noone to counter the BS that this society lays on us about how we look on the outside.

So, that's me, about me, which is totally different than me, when it's about you. I don't care what size others are. If someone weighs 500 pounds, I would worry about their health, but other than that, I really don't notice much what size anyone is.

I have noticed that I see very nice people as beautiful, and beautiful people who are not very nice as not so nice looking. I've found it fascinating how much this seems to be true. What's inside shines through, if that's what we look for in others.

So, it makes a lot of sense that when I'm not centered, that I fall back into self-judging. For whatever reason, I gave up judging others in such harsh ways a pretty long time ago. It's like being really good at giving advice but not applying it to oneself.

I need some jeans. Going into the dressing room is painful. Why should I loathe this body so much? And the disconnect between what I believe and what I feel is just absurd.

This wasn't what I was planning on writing. It wasn't going to be mostly about me. I expected to write an impassioned short tome on loving oneself and the subjective nature of body image. Well, that's in here, buried somewhere. But in the end, it's all personal, to some extent. What's your story?

I vow to reconsider the self-loathing of my body, this wonderful body, this aging and sagging body, and to continue to reject that which my society tells me.

And I'm sure there's more to come.

Painting note:Fernando Botero (b. 1932)
Mademoiselle Riviere, after Ingres, 2002

Coming soon: long ramble about body image

I'm in a hurry. I am planning on writing a long piece about body image and weight issues. In the meantime, how do you feel about your size or weight? Are you comfortable with the way you look and feel, and if so, why? If not, why not? Have you ever noticed that this fluctuates with the way you feel in general or is it completely tied in to what size or weight you are? I'd love to hear your thoughts on these issues. I assure you, you'll hear a lot from me. Coming soon from this blog to you!

Zaftig

Oy vay. The word "zaftig" is an American word. Here's the etymology: Yiddish zaftik, literally, juicy, succulent. Zaft, juice: Middle High German: saft, earlier saf, juice, sap + -ig, -y.

Well, now I know that I've been called "juicy" by relatives. Ick! But I'm guessing they hadn't a clue. They just thought they were using a nicer word than the American "chubby", which is slightly better than saying one has a lot of baby fat (and no one over six years of age can still have the cute form of that).

Last night, when I stayed up late (with one eye open) after mistakenly drinking a large cup of dark roast coffee thinking it wouldn't affect me (ha), I was thinking about how I used to be heckled by guys when I was young. I found it annoying and threatening, especially when I was hissed at.

Some years back, a friend mentioned how much she enjoyed going to Spain and Italy, where men would verbally harass her on the street all the time. She didn't use the word "harass", but I don't remember what word she used because I was so surprised. She actually enjoyed this attention?! Yes, indeed. In fact, she bemoaned the fact that now that she was in her thirties, she didn't get as much attention on the street as she used to. This perspective was a surprise to me. For the first time in my life, I thought "I might be a puritanical American".

Since I haven't lived in New York City for over twenty years, I hadn't noticed that I was no longer being harassed (or paid attention to) by strange men on the street. After hearing my friend talk about it, the next time I was in a city, I did in fact notice that noone said a word to me. I had become an invisible woman. And frankly, even though I may have felt less harassed, I realized that I had missed something terribly important. I had missed that I had once been a beautiful young woman. How sad.

Though I don't advocate yelling at women on the street (not in the least), I realize that I miss being wanted. Not by those strangers, no, not that. It's more of a general thing. When I look in the mirror these days, I think, "Who would desire that?" I sure wouldn't (and don't). Just as they say you need to love oneself before others can love you fully, I think one needs to find themselves their own sex object before one can be truly wanted. And if you think feeling desired is of no consequence, just wait until you're not and see how it feels.

Of course, in this society we do put too much emphasis on physical desirability. And people who are in long term relationships can see each other in ways that others do not. The elderly woman who's been married for fifty years, well, in the best of worlds, her husband still sees the young beauty he fell in love with long ago. At least that is what we all hope for, isn't it?

Last night I was also thinking about my mother. She had a full face lift in 1984, before it was all that common for middle class women to do this. She spend all her savings on that face lift, which I found most disturbing. The odd thing is that I do not recall if I saw her afterwards. She died that year due to a car accident. When I had to settle her accounts, she had less than five hundred dollars in the bank, not even enough to buy a plain casket. All that surgery had been for nothing, but how was she to know?

I judged her quite a bit for that face lift. I wondered why she couldn't accept getting old. And when she died, I thought that she was spared the business of becoming elderly, which I could not imagine her doing. My mother cared so much about the externals - clothing and weight. She regularly took people under her wing and gave them complete makeovers. She'd take dorky guys shopping, oversee their haircuts, give them advice on making witty conversation. And if they wound up with more dates, hooray!

I feel badly now, thinking that I felt my mother was spared, for I am moving into the same territory of age that she was having difficulty with. My mother looked far better than I at the age I am now, but that's because I haven't cared all that much about these things.

I have also harbored a delusion of pretty big proportions: Thinking that I was an unattractive woman, I figured I wouldn't notice the changes that middle age would bring. I figured there would be no sense of lost. Oh, how wrong I was!

Painting Note: Peter Paul Rubens (again). A portrait of his zaftig wife, Hélène Fourment.

Addendum: I don't know if it'll change by the time you get there, but if you click on the link for yourdictionary.com's definition of zaftig (not the one I used above), you will find something I found rather disturbing. There's ads for shoes, shoes and more shoes plus lots of pink ads for the movie "Sex in the City" and shoes, shoes and more shoes. There's got to be a diet link on there somewhere, but all that pink made me want to go away fairly quickly. And I do like pink, but just not in such large quantities.

Jeans update: This morning I realized the absurdity of a 5'1" woman wearing a pair of 38 inch jeans. I am not morbidly obese. If I think I'm actually hiding my fat by wearing these, I'm mistaken. Well, maybe I am, 'cause my neighbor said to me reccently after I declined a size 8 pair of pants someone gave her, "I can't tell what size you are - everything you wear is so baggy!" But the gals at What Not to Wear would have a field day with me (and I wish they would!) so I'm giving these jeans to Dick. Hope he likes them. (Note: I put the link to the show there, but I don't know if it's still any good: Trinny and Susannah are gone!)

Size(s)

I have steadily gained weight over the last few years. Not being happy with this, I came up with a strategy, not a diet: I decided to eat like I was living alone Monday through Friday and share meals with Dick and friends on the weekends (unless something special came up). I instituted this new eating policy in the late Spring and assumed it would work well, for I've always been thin when I've lived alone.

I'm a social eater. I don't sit alone and nibble on food while watching TV. I like eating meals. I'm not a grazer. Though I often get cravings for iced cream or popcorn (especially while watching movies), I can live without either. As far as eating goes, my greatest pleasure is eating with others while engaging in lively conversation. The second biggest pleasure is eating in silence and savoring each bite of food for all it is worth.

So, the plan made all the sense in the world. But, it did not work. I have gained at least ten pounds since I changed my eating habits. I went from being chubby to being big, and it's a shock.

I have never stayed the same size for too long. Three years is probably the maximum time limit I've had on any one size. But going from a size 0 to a size 6 is not such a big deal. I was way too thin when I was a 0 (though I didn't think so at the time). Size 6 was nice. It was this past Spring when I hit the double digit number of 10 and decided to do something about it.

And now I'm even bigger. Who is this person? I am unrecognizable to myself.

I needed to buy a new pair of jeans today. Nothing fit. Looking in the dressing room mirror (which I tried to avoid) was frightening. Not only am I fat, but everything is sagging. My extremely white skin makes it all the worse looking. I tried to look and not think such self-loathing thoughts. It can't possibly be good for my mental health to think such things as "you are disgusting." But I could not turn off these sorts of thoughts.

I wound up buying a pair of men's carpenter jeans that are insanely huge. I need to use a belt pulled up tight in order to keep the jeans from falling down. I may be big, but I'm nowhere near a size 38! I've always liked the look of too-big pants and a tiny waist, but now I'm missing that all important component (the tiny waist). And when I cinch in the waistline of the jeans, they ride up so high that there's only a few inches to go before one hits my boob line.

I am a short, fat and middle-aged woman. And I have limp brown shoulder length hair. Ugh.

I loved it when I was really skinny and had a shaved head. I was androgynous. I felt strong. Now I look an awful lot like my grandmother. No one in their right mind would mistake me for a boy. And for someone like me, who doesn't feel all that gendered, this feels almost as strange as wearing a frou-frou dress (actually - it's far worse). Unfortunately, unlike a dress, I can't just remove the excess fat from my body in one fell swoop and throw it on the floor in disgust.

I don't know what to do. I don't eat all that much, and I eat healthy food. I haven't been as active as I used to be, but that doesn't account for it all. I know that I am on medication that can put on the pounds, and that may account for quite a bit. Plus, I am no longer a young woman. No woman in my family was thin in their older years (and I remember none of them overeating).

I may have to resign myself to this. I realize that being okay with it, and with myself just the way I am, is far harder than any diet I've ever been on. And there may be a lot more merit to achieving that kind of self-acceptance and love than being my "ideal size".

Painting note: Rubens "Venus Before the Mirror" 1615 I always turn to Rubens when I feel gross. When I was a kid, folks called overweight women "zaftig". I am typing with one eye open (yep, that's how tired I am), so I'm too lazy to look up what the exact meaning of the word (German, I presume) means. Anyone like to inform me?

Addendum: I tossed off this post in a hurry while fighting sleep. I think this is an important topic. Weight and size are huge issues for women, and theses issues, in my opinion, are far larger than the amount of energy they use up. I may wind up taking down this post and re-writing it when I can think more clearly, and if I do not, this surely won't be the end of the topic.

As an aside, I notice that I write about myself instead of writing theoretically. This, I've discovered, is quite "feminine" of me. I assume that by your reading of my experiences and feelings, you'll think about your own experiences and feelings. I may be making a wrong assumption. But, I suspect not.

If fat isn't a feminist issue, there are many other contenders

One should probably be of lucid mind and had plenty of rest before one sits down and writes about some serious issues. Well, to hell with that.

I admitted to a friend this evening that I will do everything to avoid seeing my body naked now that I've gained so much weight. If I need to take a shower I will, as quickly as possible, put on a bathrobe. There's no way in hell that I'm going to walk the distance from the bedroom to the bathroom naked.

I wait until the water is hot enough to get into the shower before I take off my bathrobe. I hang it in grabbing distance of the shower stall. While in the shower, I do not look at my body. This sounds like it might be a hard thing to do, but it is surprisingly easy. I either keep my eyes closed or I look at my feet, but, if I look at my feet I run the risk of thinking that I used to be able to see them more clearly before I developed a belly.

The minute I am done showering, I grab the towel, dry myself off and then hurriedly get that bathrobe on before I have any opportunity to catch myself in the mirror.

This past Christmas I had the horrible experience of taking a shower at a relative's house who had installed a clear glass shower with a gigantic mirror facing it. They had also put in new, outrageously bright lights in there. It was like being in hell, a beautiful hell, but hell nonetheless. Next time I visit, I will just wash my face and spray some perfume on.

Or, better yet, perhaps, just perhaps, I will develop a new attitude.

Do I need a gastric bypass? No. Am I morbidly obese? No. Am I overweight? Yes. Should this make me feel like I"m a disgusting creature upon whom no eyes should fall, lest they keel over in horror? Of course! At least that's what the plastic surgeons and magazines are telling me, aren't they?

I should have or had the followiing: A chin job. A neck resurfacing. Liposuction. A tummy tuck. A butt lift (they do those, don't they?) If I was still a child, I should have had my legs broken and had pins inserted in order to make me at least three inches taller, 5'4", instead of the "abnormal" barely over five feet. Oh, there's more. I need a breast lift. Perhaps move the fat from my stomach into my cheekbones. Tooth veneers. Plumped lips. Dye my hair more regularly so no gray ever shows. Remove every bit of body hair. Do my nails. Get my eyelashes extended or thickened. Botox my forehead and the smile lines around my mouth.

Have I left anything out? Probably.

Oh, and I must not be a real woman. I have never had a pedicure or even painted my toenails myself.

So, my dear friend Lisa, whom I want to thank for, well, everything, said to me tonight that perhaps we've forgotten about our being feminists. I said, "What do mean? Like, fat is a feminist issue?"

Yes.

Okay, I'm cutting myself off right here and now. I'm too tired. And I feel gross and fat and am thinking I'm going to go sleep in my clothes.

Painting note: Peter Paul Rubens "Young Woman in a Fur Wrap" (after Titian) c.1629–30
Every time I bring up all the negativity surrounding issues of being fat, or just feeling fat (well, almost every time) I will counter it with an image of "Art" (with a capital A). Fashion photographers, fashion designers, and rich white men may like skinny women with big fake boobs, but the great painters did not (okay, they didn't have silicon implants in the 17th century, but they weren't applying leeches to cellulite, either).

Check out the Life in Italy website for this short article "Big is Beautiful".

The tyranny of beauty

About ten years ago, I was at a tattoo convention and a photographer from Britain wanted to take my picture. I had a flaming migraine headache and was horribly cranky, so I said "No." He persisted until I gave in.

He took me to a room where he had all his equipment and a big Jackson Pollack looking backdrop. That room was cold. I presume he hadn't put the heat on for some reason or other, which was absurd, given that it was February in Maine. Perhaps he wanted his subjects to be uncomfortable, perhaps he liked it that way or perhaps the equipment needed to be cold, like big computers, but nonetheless, it was too cold for my comfort and didn't do much to brighten my already miserable spirits.

I tried to bail. It was just a photograph. What was the big deal? We could do it the next day, right? Oh no! He loved that I was miserable. "Give me some attitude, love!" he yelled out in his British accent. I kept protesting, and wonder right this minute why I didn't just walk out the door, for he didn't lock me in. He just kept yelling "Give me some attitude!"

He took some pictures. I left, and went to my room, where I suffered some more abuse from the fellow whom I was sharing it with. He was fed up with this older woman's migraine and pathetic demeanor. "You're always feeling sick", he said to me. It was true. I had a headache a good amount of the time. I should have shared a room with a less robust person, but I hadn't thought it through.

Some months later, I got a call from my father in New York City, saying he had a tattoo magazine in his hand, and it had my photograph in it. My first reaction was "Oh god. He's seen me wearing latex." But that was not the problem. It was this: "You never could smile for the camera!" I explained that I was cold and miserable that day, and that I believed the photographer wanted to goad me into looking mean (which I do believe was true) and that, come to think of it, does anyone smile in tattoo magazines? Well, yes, they do, but it's usually the salacious smile of a scantily clad woman.

Dad, the reason I never smiled for your camera is this: You told me that I was overweight and unattractive. Why would I even want my picture taken under those circumstances? You didn't take family photos, like other fathers. There wasn't a book we'd put the photos in, to look back on and remember the good times. You were an art photographer and I was the unhappy not-good-enough subject. So, no, I was not smiling, and besides, I looked less attractive when I smiled. How did I know this? You told me.

I don't have photographs of my life. For years I thought I didn't "need" them, whatever that meant, because I didn't have children. I'd say "the memories in my head are good enough for me." I really believed this, even though it really was a lie I was trying to believe.

What I did believe is that I truly was too ugly to be in a photograph and if someone did take one of me, it was hard to see anything except what I thought was my ugliness. Yes, I've been overweight or I've been caught making a ridiculous face (and it is true that when I smile broadly my entire face distorts, but really, it's fantastic to be able to smile with such freedom, isn't it?)

The botoxed women we see more and more of each day can't show their feelings with their faces. Botox not only deadens your nerves but it deadens your freedom of expression. I am enraged when I see their ads that proclaim "I'm doing it for me!" Really? You've got to be kidding me! Who in their right mind would inject botulism into their face to diminish the signs of age and keep yourself from being able to show your feelings authentically?

Well, a lot of people would. The plastic surgeons are having a field day.

Someone once pointed out to me that my objections to plastic surgery were hypocritical because I had tattoos. I gave this some thought and decided there was some truth to this. I was changing the way my body looked and doing so permanently. How is that different than getting plastic surgery?

Well, I guess I just got shamed into thinking I was wrong, for I now disown giving in to this way of thinking. I don't blame anyone, say, for getting plastic surgery to correct something truly troubling. But for anything else, it is giving in to the tyranny of the beauty standard. We are not supposed to age, to sag, to look different. We are supposed to be symmetrical. We are supposed to not look too "ethnic".

There was an episode of "Extreme Makeover" in which they took a young girl, who really did have a bad tooth problem and did what they said, gave her an extreme makeover. She did need to have her teeth fixed. When they were done with that, they should have let her go, but they did not. She had her breasts augmented, her nose shortened and a few other things I can not remember. Before this, she looked like Meryl Streep's sister. Isn't that good enough?

No, she had to look like "every woman". What individuality she had was gone. And the worst thing about it was this: her family was delighted! They cried and hugged and celebrated. Finally, their daughter looked normal, like anyone, like a Christie Brinkley!

What is wrong with these people? Why didn't they just fix their daughter's teeth in the first place? They were not poor. Judging from their reactions to her extreme makeover, they were obviously ashamed of their "ugly" daughter. She had been brainwashed, or if I was going to put a finer point on it, emotionally abused. She believed that she could not work with the public in any way, and would never realize any of her aspirations, simply because she was ugly.

The people who needed a make over were her parents. They needed a make over of their values.

My father needed this, too.

Let me tell you one more story: I sat down one afternoon with a manager at my bank. She was a very large woman. On her desk was a picture of herself in a fancy dress, with a huge smile upon her face. There was no one else in the photograph. I presume it was a picture from an event that brought her good memories, but the single thing that affected me was this: She didn't mind looking at a photograph of herself, even though she was at least one hundred pounds overweight. No, it's not healthy to be obese, but it's not a reason to hate yourself or deny yourself or others the pleasure of memorializing good memories with photographs.

The tyranny of the beauty standard is getting worse every year, or maybe I'm noticing it more. After all, I am now middle aged, and I do think about plastic surgery (though I can't afford it). It bothers me that I do. I should be proud of the lines that grace my face. They are emblems of my life experience. But no, I should and you should look perpetually young, lineless, expressionless and as unreal as a mannequin.

It is time for another reassessment of what we've come to. On January 24, 1964, The Twilight Zone aired an episode entitled "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You". Here's the opening narration: "Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future when science has developed a means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow—but it happens now in the Twilight Zone."

And it is happening now, in 2008.

Photo note: A still from "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You".

Anorexia

I was anorexic for a couple of years. I had no idea. Seriously. I've certainly heard the expression "denial" but I always thought it was a bunch of nonsense. How could alcoholics, drug addicts, anorexics (and all the other "obvious" problem behaviors like these) be unknown to the person engaging in them?

I did not know. Sure, I had some people asking me if I was sick, but I chalked that up to living in Maine. No one in New York City asked me if I was sick! Now, the fisherman whom I worked with, well, they said things like "no man wants to ride an ironing board" and "the more the merrier". Being fat, in Downeast Maine, is not a liability in the least. Being skinny was. Somehow I was suspect, and I imagine that part of that was due to xenophobia. After all, everybody knows that they like 'em skinny in New York and other places that are "away".

I worked in a tattoo shop and because of this, I could wear what I wanted. Since I was already quite "other", I played it up. I wore too much makeup, shaved my head and tended towards wearing latex and other non-breathable materials (all in black, of course). What did everyone else wear? Sweats and the occasional hawaiian shirt.

I wore stiletto boots or Doc Martens. And not only was I blind to my anorexia but blind to the effect that wearing these types of clothes had on people. I was asked many a time if my services as a dominatrix were available. I was also mistaken for being a very strange type of lesbian. Looking back, I think many people projected their sexual fantasies upon me. It didn't help that I have a voice that is low and seems to lull people into relaxation (or submission, depending on how you look at it).

I hardly ate a thing. Generally, I'd drink diet Coke and smoke cigarettes all day. I'd eat one meal a day and it consisted of one of two things: cup o' noodles or an egg and cheese sandwich. My refrigerator held only seltzer water and ice cubes. A friend of mine once commented "Your refrigerator looks like a junkie bachelor lives here".

I wasn't insulted. I was positively delighted! I had finally conquered the need for food! This is what all anorexics think.

It hurt to sit for long periods because I had lost my butt. My hip bones stuck out so far that I had permanent bruises on them. Who cared? Everything I wore looked good on me (or so I thought). And when I went shopping, I could say out loud to a salesperson (with righteous indignation), "Don't you have a size 0?"

I had struggled with being chubby my entire life (and my father warned me that when I became middle aged, I'd develop a huge ass just like his sisters, so I better start dieting early).

Occasionally, I'd overeat to the point of craziness. But I was not bulimic. I couldn't fathom making myself throw up. The truth is, I love food. So, when confronted with good food, I would eat, and eat until there was not a speck left. Once, I went out with a large group of people (where, I can't remember). I do remember I was wearing a sleeveless latex top and a corset and a friend's teenage daughter said to me, "Are you really going into the restaurant dressed like that?!" Yes, I was and I did.

I ordered some kind of beef stew. The portion was enormous. I adore meat and I ate that like a starving women (which, I suppose I was). I probably even licked the plate. I realized that everyone was looking at me with shock in their eyes. "Where did you put that?", someone said, with the afterthought, "Aren't you full??!"

I probably couldn't tell whether I was full or not. When you're anorexic, you lose the ability to tell these things. You may be hungry or you may not be. "Officially" you still are hungry (and I just got that question wrong on a Pathology test in school). I don't remember being hungry at all.

My doctor said to me that she thought I should gain a few pounds. I was quite startled. How had it come to this? I had been to Weight Watchers twice in my life and never even reached my goal weight. I was at least thirty pounds less than that when my doctor said something.

Slowly, I started eating again. And now I am overweight and everything looks like crap on me. I think, "I should go on a diet", but the idea of it is horrendous. I don't want to make weight any kind of issue. I want to learn to love this body just the way it is. I have no idea if this is possible. But I'm trying.

Art note: Peter Paul Rubens "The Three Graces"

Addendum: Rubens would love me now, but I don't know what he'd make of the weird jester faces tattooed under my knee caps. They would clash with all that classical imagery, don't ya think?

Smelling American

Yesterday, before I had a shower, I realized that I had gone without for longer than I probably ever have. I stank. Here's the thing: I liked it. There was nothing wrong with the way I smelled. I will say the obvious: I smelled like a woman and I smelled like sweat. Horrors! In this country, we are not allowed to smell this way outside of the bedroom.

I had my shower, washed my hair with shampoo that smelled like candy, washed my body with a soap that smelled like sweet olive oil, washed my face with something that smelled of mint and topped it off with a scrub on my legs that smelled like nuts and chocolate. After I dried my hair, I used a supposedly "scent-free" hair spray that smelled like hair spray and applied another supposedly scent free deodorant that smelled like deodorant. It seemed absurd to apply perfume. I was already a stew of scents.

I did anyway.

But what to do? One simply cannot find true scentless products these days. We are surrounded by scent. I was enjoying this at first, whenever this trend started, for I grew up on expensive European soaps. (My father took me to the old Caswell Massey store where we would buy one bar of soap per visit. We found exotic soaps in Chinatown. He said soap was cheap enough to be a poor man's luxury and a little bit of heaven in one's day. I'm glad for learning that young.)

Yet, now that I am nearly obsessed with perfume, I am worrying about my scents clashing. Am I going to have to start using Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap? Perhaps. I wish it was a better product, in that case.

Art Note: Ruben's "Leda with Swan"
I doubt her scent, especially after mingling with this creature, would be acceptable in polite company.

There has always been a beauty standard

When looking for an image, I stumbled upon this book, "Beauty and Virtue: Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women", which sounds terribly interesting, but it's probably bone dry and dull. I say this because I can't stomach "art speak", even though I was schooled in it, in, of all places (surprise!), art school. I know I shouldn't make assumptions, but since the book is forty bucks in paperback, I'll pass. . .

I was looking at the 1970's woman in the ad for Listerine and thought how "ugly" she seemed to me. This rather hard look is considered "sexy" in our society, even if it's become more refined than back in the seventies. Think of all the women in the Miss America Pageant. They are all under 23 (I believe) but look uniformly like sexy thirty-somethings. The beauty pageant woman always reminds me of "The Stepford Wives". Not being even close to the American beauty standard myself, I've always taken a snarky pleasure in thinking that they will all age poorly.

I wanted to find a painting that showed how much the beauty standard has changed over the years. I was disappointed. It hasn't changed all that much. Perhaps there was once more of an emphasis on the "virtue" of a woman and and innocent, youthful looks were prized more for their conveyance of a certain sense of non-worldliness as opposed to the rather lurid focus on youth we have now (think Jean Benet Ramsey).

I would venture to say that the real difference between now and "then" (whenever that was) is that we are all subject to these standards now. In the past, it was reserved for the upper classes. I mean, who had time for that when you were busy tending to the potatoes?

I had originally wanted to post on the subject of love, but I'm putting that off for as long as possible (well, not really, but I am given to hyperbole). There will be more on this subject, I'm sure, for it irks me no end (note: that's an understatement). I have known few women for whom the expectations of society's overemphasis on looks hasn't taken some sort of toll. Perhaps I know none, in fact. How about you?